The picket signs put your life at stake.
With your hand in hers it is all
you can do to keep moving forward
because the signs are telling you
that love is not love after all,

that eves proceed their holidays,
spring freezes into winter
which ripens to fall.
Light burns off the earth in waves
that crash into the sun.

Bodies float out of their graves
like astronauts jettisoned from the shuttle.
Dirt hardened by ages sighs
beneath your toes,
magma slithers back into volcanoes,

the biker’s tires only spin forward
because he’s zooming back,
he holds a beer can in his hand
beneath one streetlight
and a firefly in a jar beneath the next.

Children are releasing fireflies
from jars, poking holes
back into the lids,
cutting off air supply,
untelling lies.

And you, as you walk
through the picketers,
are become a child again,
weaving through the legs of women
and men a party, hugging your shoulders

to yourself again to confirm
that they’re yours
as you stand in a dress
your mother picked out for you
the night before.

As the picketers leave you fall,
glasses crack, voice creaks
like an attic door.

Rain dilutes the salt on your cheeks
as it rises from the floor;
this is a mind war.
After all that backwards,
this girl is not something you want
to find beautiful anymore.

But you are still holding her hand.
Look,
she says to you,
maybe G-d doesn’t mean it
when He says He hates us.
After all,
He said let there be light,
*and then there was darkness.