He fills a bowl with healthy snacks
and waits for the trick-or-treaters.
But they’re never what he expects.
Sometimes it’s a burned out Crest kid –
just a skeleton blackened
everywhere but her pearly whites.
Sometimes it’s a poor child
who had no insurance –
groaning “trigg or deef”
with his cancerous rictus.
Sometimes it’s just his lawyer
chattering incoherently about malpractice.
Sometimes it’s an incredible
human drill, screeching in his doorway,
its head spinning exorcist-style
and so fast he can see no features
but knows that it’s smiling
with braces bending like the gates of hell.
Sometimes it’s just a puddle of bloody spit
peppered with strangely familiar teeth
spelling out FRAUD in the carnage.
Between these visits,
he gently shuts his door,
refills his dish with delights,
and heads back into the basement
for another hit of laughing gas.
He shares this with his dead patient
who smiles with perfect teeth
but never seems to laugh along.