kevin bacon as memento mori

by John Sara

I’m on my deathbed and the doctor

whips out a skull; some cheap Halloween prop

he thrifted from Goodwill, making a garbled

whooooooo before it runs out of batteries.

(Memento mori. Remember you have to die.)

Kevin Bacon says he feels uncomfortable

when signing pictures of his dead face;

that scene in Friday the 13th when

he takes an arrow through the neck,

blood spurting wildly from the wound.

(Memento mori. Leave your corpse hot and stupid.)

God, I rented that movie so many times as a kid,

like pressing play sealed Kevin’s fate—

him and the rest; knowing I couldn’t save them

no matter how much the tape was rewound.

(Memento mori. Never smoke in a horror movie. Never have sex.)

I’m on my deathbed and the doctor stabs

me with a fake knife; says the best recipe

for blood is corn syrup and other red stuff.

That’s what makes it glisten.

He doesn’t tell me about the killer under the bed.

No one ever warns me about the killer under the bed.

Photo of John Sara

BIO: John Sara is a writer from Parma, Ohio. He received his BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University and is currently pursuing his MFA at Ashland University, where he works as an adjunct professor and lead fiction editor for the student-run literary journal The Black Fork Review. His work has been featured in such places as Prairie Margins, Paper Dragon, The Evening Universe, Schlock! Webzine and more.