On the Day of the Dead

There are skeletons in shop windows,
posing their papier-mache bodies
in the least frightening light.
Some wear cowboy hats, others crowns.
Not dangling, not shuddering,
but lolling about,
having a good old skeletal time.

More and more are out on the streets,
bouncing on springs,
limbs flailing
like the arms of drunkards.
They turn death into slapstick comedy.

These jangling jesters
are not the bags of bones
that flopped unexpectedly
out of closets
in those terrifying horror movies
of my childhood.

Or, more recently,
the human remains
laid out on the tables of forensic scientists
in TV cop shows.

And not the images
way deep in my mind
of the death camps,
real monsters at work this time,
bodies slopped on top of bodies
in chilling black and white footage.

These skeletons are friendly.
They stop to shake my hand.
It’s the day of the dead
but a celebration,
not a time for disgust and dread.

We are all bones when it comes down to it.
So I join in bones’ irresistible joy.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, City Brink, and Tenth Muse. Latest books, “Subject Matters”,” Between Two Fires” and “Covert” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Hawaii Pacific Review, Amazing Stories, and Cantos.