FAN LETTER TO GEORGE ROMERO
by Connor Holmes
Into the trash we tossed our Halloween pumpkins, masked
Candy skull white, the pale paint of a corpse’s skin from Night
Of the Living Dead, that horrifying monochrome whose
Sequel my father once played an extra in, tattered clothes
Specked red as he ambled downtown Fort Myers with
Hundreds of unpaid pretenders, locals hoarding, pulsing
In their bloody makeup past pillars of the old court house
Their innards leaking between the marble, carrying
A brain-hungry strain, that’s their motivation, brains, for this
Scene from where my father ambled home, through our open
Door caked in his wounds and all the mortal scars children
Fear when their fathers show them. I didn’t know his death
Was not real yet, and when my wife and I watched the pumpkins
Rotten in November heat, leak their contents against
The edge of the bin, when the seeds glistened pale, round,
Fertile, I thought of my father and wondered about the Day
My daughter, or son, would see the scars I’d meant to mask.
Copyright © 2016 by Connor Holmes.