For Thomas

I couldn’t keep your secret anymore,

Not with the evidence strewn across the lawn —

Someone or thing had found the hiding place

And scattered your stash of sugary contraband

Like confetti. I thought of a raccoon

Holding a string of licorice with both paws,

His own bit of trick-or-treating done

Behind a built-in mask, that little bastard

Bandit snickering with his lucky find.

My father soon put two and two together,

Knowing why it was hidden at our house,

And helped me clean it up without a word.

That was thirty years ago by now.

Not a Halloween goes by that I don’t think

Of you, my boyhood friend, having to hide

What we regarded as a God-given right

From your own mother — as if she wouldn’t notice

Your blood congealed with sugar in the morning.

I’m sure you planned to double your insulin

Before you climbed back into bed that night,

Still reeling from the foreign sugar rush

That crazed your dreams of running with the gang,

Thinking you pulled one over on your mother

Who had threatened you with your very life

If you so much as think of going out,

But watched you all the same through the back door

As you slipped out a second story window

And landed with a muffled shriek of laughter

Amid the playmates waiting there for you

With a makeshift costume and a grocery sack.

While we raced off as pirates in the night

To pillage our way through the neighbourhood,

She stood there breathless, braced against the door,

With her conflicted heart caught in her throat,

Unable to cry out Thomas, please don’t go.

Image courtesy of © 2011 Thinkstock