All Souls

A few of us—Hillary Clinton, Vlad Dracula, Oprah Winfrey, and Trotsky—peer through the kitchen window at a raccoon perched outside on a picnic table where it picks over chips, veggies, olives, and a chunk of pâte. Behind us others crowd the hallway, many more dance in the living room. Trotsky fusses with the bloody screwdriver puttied to her forehead. Hillary Clinton, whose voice is the rumble of a bowling ball, whose hands are hairy to the third knuckle, lifts his rubber chin to announce, “What a perfect mask it has!” While the Count whistling through his plastic fangs says, “Oh, and a nose like a chef.” Then one by one the other masks join in: “Tail of a gambler,” “a swashbuckler’s hips,” “feet of a cat burglar.” Trotsky scratches herself beneath her skirt and Hillary, whose lederhosen are so tight they form a codpiece, wraps his legs around Trotsky’s leg and humps like a dog. Dracula and Oprah, the married hosts, hold hands and then let go. Meanwhile the raccoon squats on the gherkins, extracts pimentos from olives, and sniffs abandoned cups of beer. A ghoul in the living room turns the music up and the house becomes a drum. The windows buzz. “Who do you love? Who do you love?” the singer sings. Our feathered arms, our stockinged legs. The intricate paws, the filleting tongue. We love what we are; we love what we’ve become.