Lights

A small handle with fiber-optic cables springing like snakes from Medusa’s head. Press a button and tiny colored dots at the end of the translucent strings would light. The day after the Shrine Circus, all the kids in my class had them, waving them. My dad asked me if he’d ever broken a promise, and I said nothing—he never took me to the circus because he didn’t have the money, not because he couldn’t keep a promise. How do you say that to your father. Almost thirty years later, my daughter and I go to the circus. First time for both of us. She holds my hand and wants to run past the bouncy castles, the face painting, the pony rides—all things she loves, all things that cost money. Sitting alone in our seats, waiting, I ask her why she doesn’t want to be where everyone else is. Because I don’t know if you can afford it, she whispers, then leans her head into my chest, and I am glad she can’t see my face. Later—after the Orientals have been introduced and pretzel-thrown themselves into the thick air, the circus runners turn out the lights—over the loudspeaker some asshole will tell all the kids to lift their glowing butterfly wands, lightsabers, laser pistols into the air and wave them proudly, show them off, and tell us over and over that if we want one, if we really really want one, we can buy them from the men holding enormous bags lumbering up and down the aisles like mercenary Santas. The light-up things pulse, illuminating my daughter’s face in hyphens of light as she stares across a sea of bright things, a thousand blinking promises never asked for, a thousand flashing neon signs telling her what she doesn’t have.

In the Dark

When I first saw them, glass fuses looked like jewels.

Solid and sharp, rings of color to label wattage,

their weight in my small hands made them serious.

Grooved tails meant they belonged somewhere.

My dad decided it was time for me to learn—

along with how to breathe when shooting a gun,

holding two-by-fours for him to saw while he cursed

his lot in life—

I would trade these jewels for light.

I summoned the courage to ignore

my older siblings telling me murderers and monsters

lived in the sweated concrete of our basement.

With a book of matches I pretended I was a warrior,

torch in hand, the fuse box my treasure chest.

I kept some of the blown ones, smudged as if given black eyes,

and ran my fingers along their hard edges.

He’s too young, he could get electrocuted, my mom protested.

If you didn’t use the microwave and the grill at the same time,

we’d still have power, my dad would rebut.

While my parents debated who I’d grow up to be in this country

and my siblings imagined different locations for monsters,

I curled my fist around the fuses ’til the edges left lines in my palms.