Laurel Anderson


Small Town, Swing State


We do it up right for Halloween.
Pumpkins sliced with grins
glow from every porch.
Plastic skeletons dangle and clatter
in the bare branches
of ornamental dogwoods. Mothers
masked as witches stage-cackle
over Walmart cauldrons
filled with chocolate.
We do not know our children
as they make their pilgrimage
from house to house, erased
by their disguises. Dry leaves
crack beneath their feet.
Shadows of November
stripe the white silences
between our sentences.

Laurel Anderson is a plant ecologist and poet. Her poetry has appeared in Terrain.org, Radar Poetry, EcoTheo Review, Split Rock Review, River Mouth Review, The Fourth River, and elsewhere. Laurel teaches science at Ohio Wesleyan University and lives with her family in central Ohio. Learn more about her work here.

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