“Would you ever do drag?” Daisy asks,
her arm in mine as we walk ahead
of Mum and Anna down Shaftesbury Avenue
toward Piccadilly Circus.
“What, for Halloween? You know I don’t do
Halloween,” I reply.
“Not for Halloween,” says Daisy. “In general,
for fun.”
“No, I don’t think so. But watching it tonight
was the best thing ever!”
We squeeze into a Bakerloo line carriage.
A skeleton and a vampire
give up their seats for Anna and Mum.
Daisy and I stand surrounded
by a whole convent’s worth of zombie nuns,
giggling and swigging from wine bottles
with handwritten sticky labels:
“Jesus Juice.” One of them offers
us her bottle and I look toward Mum,
who is looking at her phone, with Anna
already asleep tucked under her other arm.
I take a swig
and offer it to Daisy, who swigs, giggles, and
says, “Thanks.”
“Where are your costumes?” asks the Undead
Wife of Christ, taking her wine bottle back.
“I don’t do Halloween,” I say.
Daisy chimes in, “Today’s his birthday.”
“What, really?” asks the wine giver.
Without waiting for an answer,
