Baptist Spirituality

Joe LaGuardia

Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?
And not a row of pearly whites underneath?
As if Halloween was a holiday to disgrace
In which someone sought to deface.
Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?

Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?
Did he not pay his dentist a small fortune to bequeath?
So all but three rotted in his head,
Absent gleaming ivories like dominoes instead.
Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?

Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?
Did he lose his toothbrush from its sheath?
Cut down to size, one by one
Upon eating candy corns now all gone.
Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?

Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?
To sit on my stoop below the Halloween wreath?
With a grin and not a care in the world
Nor a grimace across his scowl unfurled.
Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?

Why Does the Pumpkin Have Only Three Teeth?
And he finally answered me with some mystique
Scared me half to death to hear him say,
“So I might bring light to the world in my own sort of way,
That’s why I have only three teeth.”