The Long Dark Road - A Halloween Poem

Night--
Black as the sticky Mississippi mud
Only one star out
It has turned a sinister shade of red
Some will tell you its Mars or Venus or some other distant planet
The rest will tell you that the Devil
--He's having a meeting with God
He cannot turn his eye on this night
Or any other night, though the Devil convinces him he can.

We continue our walk
Debating who wins out--
The Devil has a convincing argument
But God, well...
He's God.

My boots, part of the police uniform I simple had to have
stick in the thick mud just inches from the narrow sidewalk
I let your feet stay in the center of the concrete,
Protecting your ballet slippers--
The real ones your mother said you couldn't wear tonight
But you did anyway.

It's blocks from your house, and mine sits next door
We have almost made it unnoticed by the Devil
Until the sad whine of a hound in the night passes
And he jumps out to scare us
Disguised as a teenager in a wolf's mask

I managed to run away.
But he caught you
The Devil took you into his grasp
And threw you in front of a car
That Halloween night.

And all I could see when I returned
Was your beautiful ballet slippers--
still saved from the mud on that long dark road.