Home Movie

An epileptic dance of achromatic ants,

and visions yawn into clarity: a Technicolor

child, puffy cheeked, wrapped

in fur and sunglasses, blinks

at the lens and the man behind the lens. A mink,

her mother’s, trails behind like a wedding pelt

on her bouncing baby body.

Her fat face behind mother’s glasses, shaded by no son,

goos and spits in the kaleidoscope of infancy.

She silhouettes in their eyes.

Sound lurches in, static bursts

into loud and rapturous applause. She staggers

forward, pink fists pumping,

grabby at the camera lens, tightrope walking

with a bear upon her back.

This is the sacred dance of dress-up, chronicled

by a silent man, behind a silent screen. Then over,

she topples, facedown in carpet, and

the illogical screams of her infancy rise.

Camera pans to shrugging mother and adjusts

to the light.

These are the visions of an unremembered day,

on an unremembered street,

of a family. Zoom out. Mother

kneels beside the girl, out of focus, in jigsaw.

Sweetheart. Buttercup. Don’t cry, my

sweet, don’t cry. Her arms too thin to lift the girl.

Zoom in.

The fat face squeals as the focus blurs.

Peek-a-boo, ad nauseam. And, at last, she laughs

so hard she cries, pees, wets herself in mother’s mink.

Nevermind, she’s just a child. Keep filming.

It’s fine, keep filming.

The child squeals as the camera reels,

stopping, dropping, rolling around

like she’s on fire,

like she’s burning alive.

So much love is in this room.