The Morning After the Monsters


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The Morning After the Monsters

By dawn, the witches had gone back to work,
the vampires were shaving their little regrets.
We hung up our horns with the coats in the closet
and tried to forget what the mirror forgets.

But something came home in the hem of the costume,
some wolfish old truth with its teeth showing through.
The night had unmasked us, and we, being polite,
put our faces back on and pretended we knew.

Now the coffee tastes faintly of graveyard and roses.
The clock ticks like something that wants to get in.
We dress for the world, that perennial séance,
and go out to practice our ordinary sin.


-----


©2026 Christopher Reilley 
 

This scrap of Poetics unmasked by those Halloween lovers over at DVerse Poets Pub. Vibing with Halloween by Phoebe Bridgers

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Comments

  1. This is horror at its finest. I especially like; "Now the coffee tastes faintly of graveyard and roses. The clock ticks like something that wants to get in."

    Thank you so much for writing to the prompt ❤️❤️

    ReplyDelete
  2. "The night had unmasked us, and we, being polite,
    put our faces back on and pretended we knew."

    Bravo

    Much love

    ReplyDelete
  3. A great descriptive read in the first two stanzas...leading to that absolute killer of the 3rd, superb.

    ReplyDelete

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