pumpkin

♦ Lily Grodzins ♦

outside the 

/crack/

of a dormitory window

lie the great guts of pumpkin

sleek hull

/split/

beneath the northern gale

seeds & tangled pulp dry

like /glass-eyed fish/ on 

on a bed of ice 

come 9am

the old man and his 

pail

will scrape up the entrails 

& he would be mad but he knows 

all boys 

/break/

things &

he was a boy once too

& what will be on the stoop 

outside the 

/crack/

of the dormitory window next &

does it really matter what is thrown & 

moored along the way?

’cause all the king’s horses & 

all the king’s men will come with their pails 

come 9am

and the street will be clean before the boys wake