Brooms and Paddles

We neighborhood kids plan a Halloween candy heist.

Nothing scary about more Hershey Kisses,
or Clark Bars, Mounds or Butterfingers—
when we are ten we planned our heist,
a Mission Impossible style raid to
attain more loot…loot in this
case candy, sweet nectar
of the gods for us devils.

Loitering like bandits
with paper bags, masked
highwaymen all set to ignore
echoing boos as ghosts floated
slow yet pain-faced, set to dismiss
evil laughing witches, the ghoulish
thieves out to take from us our
confidence—no…

…ours was to be that of robbery in preteen
eagerness, how masks would protect
us from the coldness of jail, wherein
the evil of justice awaited, with
brooms and paddles.


20 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
10-17-19