This short poem by Fain Rutherford is one of the finalists of the Furious Gazelle’s Halloween contest. The contest’s winner will be announced Friday. View the rest of the finalists here.

All Saints’

 

The sisters are vampires this year.

Fully costumed, a week early,

they sit watching cartoon penguins

hijack a cargo ship.

The jagged gaps of their grins

lit up by invisible

candles on their tongues.

Fain Rutherford

Over the years, Fain has worked as a soldier, lawyer, university lecturer, rock-climbing guide, survival instructor and at-home-dad. He currently resides in the desert of central Washington State.  His recent poems appear or are scheduled to appear in Right Hand Pointing, Poetry Quarterly, Front Porch Review, Eunoia Review, Connotation Press, and Apeiron Review.