Optic Nervousness

You should have seen the squirrels
when I got home from school today.
They were all lined up on the front porch
With their heads buried in the pumpkins,

popping up occasionally to survey
the landscape with a jerk from right
to left. The gourds had been scalped
the pumpkins, wide open like bowls

of cereal on a Saturday mourning,
the marshmallows, the TV singing
“no one should terrorize this neighborhood.”
The squirrels can’t hear a damn thing. They’re landing

planes with their frantic tails. I am terrified.
They mock me in the minivan. They’re one-
Eye-ballin’ me as I struggle to get the key in
the lock. Even the oaks begin to shake hysterically.

My phone makes that chime before it powers-down.
I put the wrong key in the lock, “SNAP!”
I attempt to escape in the minivan, but the key
to the ignition has been devoured by the lock

on my apartment door. Devoured like all of those
Pumpkinseeds! One by one teeth gnashing, fang-
vaults jutting, heads rattling like doorknobs! I think
they might have batteries lodged in their abdomens.

I think the battery is dead in the egg-van. I begin
to rake at the moon. I begin to shake with these cold
dead wires pouring from below the steering column.
The windows are tinted, but I can still see those pearly

Whites! The red coats are coming! Don’t fire, it only makes
them angry—but—wait! All I can do is wait! Wait! I will have to
wait for the cold night to creep over my shoulder,
until the owls come out and the oaks stop barking,

but, ah, that—

Silence,

And all those

owls.

All those eyes.