Carving Pumpkins
By Matthew Gleckman

One evening late in October
we covered your kitchen floor
with old newspapers and sat
drinking wine with friends.
Carving pumpkins like cadavers
we loped off tops with steak knives
removing pulp, seeds, and spleen.
When the guts had been pulled
and spreakd across the paper
you paused-slime covered-
long enough to laugh at
week-old funnies.
Sitting on the sagging
green couch across the room
I drank faster than usual,
out of nervousness,
until you shot me a smile
that slowed me down some
and made me wonder
which of my organs
you are after.

Matthew Gleckman is a writer living in Issaquah, WA. He has worked as a journalist for numerous newspapers and magazines throughout the western United States and his poetry and short fiction have been published in a number of magazines and anthologies.