Sierra Hixon

Trick or Treat Elegy

By the candle, light
a match with smoke, wish on the darkness

seeping between slats of the flame, break spines
like glow-sticks, split the sky like a whip

or a gouged grin, dissect the air like a cut
peach or a caramel apple slice or even just this lightning

tearing away cloud scatter as bats barge through
the night, everything silenced. With nothing

left to pretend to be—this
night, drunk—unthreading and rethreading

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Sierra Hixon has poems published or upcoming in journals including Slipstream, Harpur Palate, the Scarab and more. She is currently a student at Salisbury University.