#909090: breaker
by Yooko Peters
The nightmare I had where the breaker was on the ceiling
light grey paint so thick you can dig your fingernails and peel
I’m under a patchwork quilt thinly embroidered with brown desert twine
planted photos of horses running like I did when I rode my four-wheeler
through the forest – I start having panic attacks where smog kisses me
burns through acne scars to heat up the concrete from below
because Mother is oven and I am tender
I go home to bright marquee lights the color of sixties’ watermelon
“coming soon” a cracked-corner window display by the alley
feeds into the library I look at the Mexican girl in bright red dress
continues to read on the solidarity in our politics of existence
and the construction work on the opposite side that’s never
getting finished – I can pretend the dust is fog at night
to the streetlights that hold the stars from the best side of town
on the line cutting into every red and blue state – deeper
too small to see it was home at least once a year
when the cowboys ride into town police-escort-style
I care for the children in my family and let welts burn and rise hair peels to flake
so I can paint a flower with my three-year-old cousin before the denial-
cotton-candy painting in my room is ripped from small woven canvas squares
cut into the pounds bag of cat food I’ll have to fit in her carrier when the wind
gets a little too rough – my cousin cakes my arm in green my palm glows
sparkly before going into her kitchen to make sure I know how to feed myself
alive until my voice is too toned to just be hoarse
Asphalt-ivy striped with yellow flowers and white blooms
have grown and covered more than I thought would happen anyway
the forest was manmade and dense and a square mile generously
I walk down gentrified neighborhoods only we will see through
large brass wind chimes haunting adobe arches and amusement-
park-ride-murals painted on garage doors next to yellow-snake-flags
the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen and the weird box I figured out
how to open – the breaker was unlocked keeping lights keeping fog
when dusk turns grey I remember
light inside needs to be even