Carving Pumpkins

I

Sitting behind the crisscrossed trellis,
pumpkins wrap their vines up to the sky,
Rich, drained soil surrounds their bodies.
They call to me,
                                                come beyond the trellis,

wrap your body up upon the wicker,
and spread your green vines.
Twist them through the crosses,
grow with us, whisper to us.

I carve faces in their bright skin with my eyes,
and wonder if he does the same for me.
Seeing what he wants too,
a pretty girl, with a silent streak.

II

My features became his to create,
with tools so sharp,
it didn’t even sting, and I didn’t even care
when he carved me out a mouth,
                                                without a tongue.

My friends beyond the trellis shriek,
as I turn to him and long for
those curls of hair I once twined
through my fingertips.

But slowly I am ripping them out,
wishing all would be bald.
Sheeny, bare and open:
scalping his skull like the head of a pumpkin.

Digging my hands in to pull out seeds,
to place in a candle, and see what’s inside.

Laura Panopoulos is graduating from Western University with an Honors Bachelor of Arts in Media, Information and Technoculture, and English. She is a lover of Douglas Coupland, Tennessee Williams and Feminist Theory.