He’s been around a lot lately, shaking his robes,
making monster faces at the children.
The wife finds him antipathetic.
I don’t mind him as much as everyone else;
I’ve known him a long time.
He used to visit me when I was a child,
dropping in unexpectedly.
His smell always put me off,
a blend of frankincense and rotting meat,
but that was foreseeable.
His voice is surprisingly high
for someone so dark and ominous.
I always wondered what it was
like to be him, in his rough black hood,
feared and despised. Was he ever lonely?
He stayed away for a decade,
then resurfaced with a vengeance.
His visits—call them that—have become
more frequent in recent times.
Sometimes he looms around me
as though he wants to tell me something.
What would that be? Come with me?
And would I go, if asked?
Would I have that choice?
I am not afraid of him.
Then again I think of him
as neither enemy nor friend.
When all is said and done
he’s just doing his job, and making
a pittance from the looks of it.
© Copyright 2016 Salvatore Difalco
Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto. He is the author of 4 books, most recently Mean Season (Mansfield Press, 2015), a novel. He is currently working on a book of poems.