Power

amateurs. toiling on their sunken walls. dull needles flaunt their medicines. her clothes coming off in confessions. her lips thick with choices unresolved. and empty glasses. eager for a sip of something

the stairs climb us. in a rigor of anticipation. howling angles on the circle's crutch. the cripple in this need turns the math into the villain. I pour the lipstick onto the clown. heavy buckets dispense the makeup. that determines. beauty. and ugliness.

i sneak a glance inside the basket. my grandmother's picnic hunts the wolf. spoils the pigs. as they languish arrogantly behind their electric fences.

But inevitably the power goes out. and all those open circuits reveal their dead ends.

she wonders why its dark. as she pressed all those buttons. she knows the numbers. how stubborn they are.

and all the tiny cracks that let the light in.