I’m a furry black cat named Midnight
And Halloween decorations in this yard
don’t scare me.
I’m rubbing my side against the wooden leg
Of a one-eyed pirate monster with a hook for a hand
And it doesn’t scare me.
Now I’m prancing by a wart-covered, humped-back butler
Who is offering dead mice and bird innards to Trick-or-Treaters
But it doesn’t scare me.
I leap to the shoulders of a very large mummy
With blood-red blinking eyes
And it doesn’t scare me.
My tail gets tangled in the tattered gray rags of a giant skeleton
But it doesn’t scare me.

As I quietly approach the candy bowl
A screaming white ghost jumps out from behind a bush
And it does scare me.

I am still running down the street!

Patty Perreault Bennett is a retired high school math teacher, and active member of Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild (RBWG). They have been published in Delaware Beach Life magazine, Lun’ Allure: To the Moon … and More, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Scenes: a collaboration of coastal artists and writers, published by RBWG, and Best Poets of 2019, Eber & Wein Publishing.