TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

Now that we’re past Halloween, I can admit that I’m not much of a Halloween person. It was fun when I was little, trick-or-treating with my friends, because, hey, free candy! And it was fun for me as a mother of young children.

In fact, one year we planned an elaborate family costume, where we each dressed like a character from the ‘80s fantasy film Labyrinth. My children’s father was David Bowie’s character, the Goblin King, in a wild blonde wig and heavy eye makeup. I was Sarah, played in the film by a young Jennifer Connelly, in a long brown wig to cover my pixie cut. My son was baby Toby in his iconic, red-and-white striped pajamas. But my daughter chose the most obscure character of all: the “junk lady” who appears only in a brief scene at the end of the film, carrying a bunch of discarded items on her back. The photos are hilarious.

Very few people knew who we were supposed to be, but we fully committed!

The speaker of today’s poem celebrates Halloween the way I do now: as an observer, outside of it all.

Halloween in the Anthropocene
by Karyna McGlynn

& Memphis is out in Full Fang!
Skeletons skip down our pitted streets.
Whole families with matching hobo stipple
roam tragicomically through the sprawling
candy deserts: polka-dot bandanas
on sticks, flapping Chaplinesque shoes.

Unclaimed pumpkins pile high
behind razor wire. The air's thick
with caw & trouble. Our porch light's out
but we stay in, listening to the festive cackle
of semiautomatics in the autumn night.

Some faceless Handmaids do a spooky
hopscotch in a Walgreens parking lot.
Two drunk men in tiger masks loll from
the window of a passing truck to tell some
Handmaid she's "thicc as shit." Anyway,

Witches are back! They straddle plastic
brooms—streaming
across the moon's bright knuckle: hedge
witches & wicked witches. Waves
of Sabrinas: blonde bobs, black
headbands, whole hexes of freckles!
Here come the Elphabas & Endoras,
the Elviras & Elsas. Even a couple
of Baba Yagas—bewitched huts
strutting forth on sexy chicken legs!

So what if it's a bit
more wink  than Wand.

We've stopped scaring ourselves
on purpose, stopped wearing our Weirds
on our Outsides. My sweetie's spilled on
the couch as Melted Clock. I park myself
on the dark stoop as Empty Pyrex Bowl.

According to the Post-it Note on my face,
my nickname is No-Treats-for-the-Wicked.
I'm a weird white lady on an unlit porch.
No one dare approach this childless abode—
not for phantom candy. Certainly
not for clarification.

“Halloween in the Anthropocene” by Karyna McGlynn from 50 THINGS KATE BUSH TAUGHT ME ABOUT THE MULTIVERSE © 2022 Karyna McGlynn. Used by permission of Sarabande Books.