Driving by the bar, we looked out the window.

Three discarded pumpkins bobbed in the stream.

I looked at my brother--five weeks after Halloween.

Time has turned their smiles into painful grimaces,

With sharp teeth worn down by maggots and rot.

Still, they grin in the water, oblivious to their fate.

Yet I can’t help but relate to them, those half-frozen,

Sinking outcasts, for I too am stuck in a stream,

Forgotten and drowning in my own desires.