October days are thin, you said,
like a shirt worn through at the elbow
so that your skin shows.

Then you smiled, and your stomach so full and swollen moved beneath your sweater.
We can’t move out of the city before the twins are born. I know that,
So I spend a weekend peeling wallpaper off the walls
of the back room.

It is slow work most of the time, though occasionally
a large section rips off quickly, revealing the bare white
wall underneath. I run my hands over the newly revealed surface

looking for bits of paper that I might have missed;
small bits, almost invisible.
In a few weeks it will be Halloween and children I do not know

will crowd around my door in cheap costumes
and cheaper masks - many will have none at all-
Naked faces emerging from the shadows.