I was busy placing detonators under the MIRROR FUN HOUSE,
pitching
piveting
images of
itself for and by
itself,
when I heard over the rusting intercom
the main fuses were being turned off for a
routine check up and I would be
again left, as every one is, every night,
in the dark and
all the better.

The bombs in my pockets reminded me they were
awake and impatient or otherwise
alive;
otherwise, their life,
like mine,
wouldn’t growing steadily
shorter.
The ferris wheel in the
distance without my glasses
a slowly rotating
flower of blinks;
I wished I could hear
the pistons
the generator
understand whatever is making that
Big Wheel turn
but instead I sliced at the end of
the plastic ends of my explosives
to make them a little more
homely and different and
mine.

I looked up into the
rectangle framing my face
while behind me a
rectangle framed the back of my
head framing the front of my
face framing the back of my
head framing the front of
me.

I ran my fingers through
the wires petting them
something pretty then
wished I could hang this
night above my kitchen sink,
just above my rubber plants,
as good luck for
the future,
the wishbone of my
gratitude.

Instead I pushed some
dirt with my fingertips
purposefully without reason
then let the
wire follow me from my back
pocket,
leading the way
for the end like
I would lead a be-speckled French bulldog,
if ever I would give in and
purchase such a friend.

I walked some distance
I don’t dare guess and
laid my body against a
tree,
I hope an Oak tree,
the roots
coddling my thighs and I
can see my breathe in the
darkness and I thought of
the spinning, blinking
stars.

I took the detonator from
my boot and before I
pressed the
don’t press
red button
I glanced over my shoulder
wondering why
I should make it,
before,

presto,

everything shattered,
every light seared the sky in a final
collision with it’s end sister
in the falling dark
and every piece of my
face and body leap
from the ground with it,
flying into a place
the darkness seemed
much brighter
from
here
and
I
was
happy
someone
had
left
the
light
on
for
me.