Eagerly pulling up my Christmas stockings,

Holding tightly to my four-leaf clover,

Grappling awkwardly with my picnic basket

All while searching for that blasted pumpkin.

No need to say the eve had gotten me down

For that stupid pumpkin had caused the whole affair.

I growled, hoping the goblins didn’t hear

And think I was calling them to dinner.

No good ever comes of goblins.

Skipping past the patch where I’d been before,

I cursed its thick, orangey skin.

No farmer should grow magic so foul.

No Earth should allow its birth.

I jumped as I heard a werewolf howl.

Damn Halloween and its fledglings of fright.

Damn the darkness that allows me no sight.

Damning myself to this holiday’s night.

Then what to my terrorized eyes did appear

But the jaundice bronze stare of a pumpkin gone bad.

Squash-shards of teeth piercing through makeshift gums

Caused my empty stomach to tremble with fear.

But I forced my cowardly gut to shut up

And concentrate on the bad matters at hand.

The Ol’ Jack’s charge set me in a fighting stance.

And I readied the top of my basket really fast,

Catching it in the wicker merely by chance.

I secured the latch with the clover in the clasp,

Pulled up my drooping Christmas stockings,

And beat heck, trying to get home before midnight.

Jack hissed and spat inside his wicker prison.

I mumbled a few good curses of my own

Then slammed open the door to my home sweet home.

I heard a light giggle and turned with a start.

Two of my children were bowed over laughing

At me, of course, for I sported Easter’s hare.

They pointed, wearing Dracula’s of their own,

Fake bloodied lips cleared to reveal pointy teeth.

Had this been any other All Hallow’s Eve,

I would have just flicked my cotton tail and winked.

Not tonight. Those little blood suckers meant harm.

I dodged them to the right and then the left.

Jumped over the table and out of their sight.

Plopping the basket down, I summoned my courage

While grabbing a bag from the table near by.

Quickly releasing the clasp, I raised the lid.

Hisses and spits turned into a grumbling roar

And that evil squash was, once again, airborne.

Its mouth opened in fury threatening my life

And I went for the only weapon I had,

Thrusting it deep into the Ol’Jack’s mouth. I gasped.

It widened its evil eyes in pure horror

And exploded in pieces. My hand intact.

I glanced all around. The holidays fading.

My own ears returned and the tail disappeared.

My kids laughed a child’s joy instead of menace.

And I sighed a breath of relief and uttered,

“No Halloween is complete without candy corn.”