that scared me 
but how faces change 
                  in the absence of light.

                  Each toy becoming
animal & every animal 
                  more human, more

fear. My mother
                  hadn’t stopped breathing
 in her sleep yet, father

                  hadn’t taken up insomnia
& I would dim the lights enough 
                  to see the dolls’ eyes safely tucked

back in their skulls. Never sleep
                  with your closet open,
my mother insisted, Who knows 

                  what could come out.
So I grew up afraid of everything
                  behind closed doors

or lids, closed lips especially, afraid
                  to open mine.
I’d swallowed far too many
 
                  lightning bugs, wings
against my larynx, trachea 
                  on fire. Secretly, I liked the ache 

                  between suffocation 
& flight—afraid to let the dark out.
                  At night, I dreamed our history.

Shadows cling to the walls. 
                  My son makes his fingers 
harmless, beak or prey— 

                  duckbill, bunny ears—he lingers 
in bedtime stories, fears
                  little & reaches

where he cannot see.
                  My mother would have taught him
fear by now—closets & strangers. 

                  Instead, I let him hug them, knowing 
caution will be easier to teach
                  than love. I give him 

shadows, a book
                  of insect & man-made wings 
we project onto the ceiling

                  with a flashlight. But if I open
my mouth against the past,
                  swallowed fireflies would light 

these pages. They survive
                  in jars for days, so why not years 
inside a fearful body? My son’s 

                  face would turn 
all wonder & aerial.
                  His mouth, a lid, hands

open to catch the swarm, 
                  to swallow & return them,
wingless, back into his dark.