I say, trick or treating’s complicated
and you ask me to shut up
upstairs, my mother polishes Faberge eggs
whispers to them, calls them
by the names of all the children her body couldn’t stomach
Halloween’s been cancelled this year
there’s a man in a bone-white bunny
suit driving a bone-white van and slurping out
people’s brains inside sticky porn theaters; at bus stops
on Potomac Avenue; on a cliff, a tarmac, a lonely baseball field
in the parking lot of the original Roy Rogers (now a McDonald’s)
you scrape burnt sugar from my lips, paint them lilac
we’re sitting within a circle of candelabras and all I
can think is, this octopus costume itches
I wish I could use my four extra arms to erase your picture, to
masturbate for the third time tonight to pray
on the television, the woman news anchor blurts out
the Bunny Man’s deviously handsome—he doesn’t just hop or
scurry—he walks straight into your home after you invite him in
and moans in your ears quotes Humphrey Bogart movies convinces you
your father had loved you all along
I wonder what a bunny is doing here so far from Easter
and you ask me to shut up
my tentacles hang rabbit pieces from your hair
you say, but only the feet are good luck
and maybe that’s the point
upstairs, my mother cracks open the eggs
with a spade, begins to fry the bits of marble in a cast iron pan
now she can finally forget she’d birthed me and not the others
you light a cigarette with a candelabra
and confess you’d met him once, years ago
underneath the Sousa bridge, coyly slipping out of the Anacostia
he’d coiled himself around you, begged you to hold his dick for just one second
whisper to it call it whatever you want
but please just call it something else
Halloween’s been cancelled this year you’re embarrassed
that you’d been stupid enough to wear a bunny costume
I’ve just invited you in because you’d gone door to
door, only to have them slammed in your
face, on your missing fingers
I admit to you that trick or treating’s complicated
and you ask me to shut up
call it whatever you want
but please just call it something else
JOHN MANUEL ARIAS is a gay, Costa Rican and Uruguayan poet back in Washington, DC after many years. His work has appeared in several literary magazines, including Sixth Finch, the Journal, and Assaracus: A Journal of Gay Poetry. “I’d Rather Sink” is his debut collection.