There’s a creepy knock on the door,
a Permatan mask at the window.
But the frame is painted shut,
it will not open –
even to the shriek of children’s laughter.
You do not live on Elm Street yet.
The man behind that face,
you dreamt him dead
just yesterday.
Stiffed in a long-planned plot.
Not by telescopic execution,
nor clumsy piece reached past
the flailing arms of bodyguards.
Rather
the personal touch
of a stiletto slid
between shirt buttons, deep
into his left ventricle.
Silent
as a deportation order
served at night.
It was so easy,
who would have thought?
Blood floods his white-shirt front,
and bigly
stains the wide red tie.
Step back.
In your mind’s eye, witness
colour drain from his cheeks,
the radiotoxic cadmium wig
scrabbling to the floor
like a mutant guinea pig.
Many, many people are saying
he had a really tremendous relationship with God
and good genes, such good genes.
It matters not. Dead means dead.
Unless,
as you pause the first spade
of freshly dug earth,
blade held in mid-air,
there’s the flicker of a soundbite
beneath those rubber eyelids.
And then the ghastly joke’s on us.
Night overtakes day and we must choose.
Trick or treat?
x. 2024
