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      January 7, 2019Kathryn PetruccelliLamps

      My mother used to tell me
      there was a time
      she kept a closet full of lamps
      so whenever one of her kids
      broke one, she’d sweep up
      and pull another out.
       
      I imagine her trolling
      the Saturday morning garage sales
      of the ’70s, buying every cheap,
      ugly thing that lit, handing over a dollar,
      50 cents, maybe haggling them down
      to a quarter. A woman with a stockpile
      of light sources at the ready
      while her children flipped
      like gymnasts through the living room:
       
      my brother leaping for all he was worth
      toward the old brown sectional,
      the rug underneath a hot pit of lava;
      my sister’s dance moves a sensation
      before the crowd was stunned to silence
      in the wake of a tragic mishap with the coffee table.
      Mom could have told them to stop, but
      she knew that sometimes you need Disaster
      to strike, to cut yourself until you bleed
      and everything goes dark.
       
      At our house, Disaster walked through
      the front door as familiar as spring mud.
      We set it a place at the table
      and after its belly stretched taut,
      sent it on its way and got back down
      to business. Some days you landed
      your backflip. Some days you didn’t.
      I can still see her: a widow
      with a penchant for the practical,
      holding an end table model
      with off-white shade, its copper base
      molded in the form of an eagle,
      cord dangling, her hand
      gripping the bird by the throat.

      from #61 - Fall 2018

      Kathryn Petruccelli

      “Often, for me, writing poetry is like having my finger on the replay button in the gentlest, most curious way. What happened there? What does what happened remind me of? I find myself thinking about how I can bind images and memories together so that the net is stronger and at some point, in some lifetime, I can rest in them, like in a hammock, and finally exhale. I started writing ‘Lamps’ after the last election, when I was trying to rally my spirits. It’s satisfying that one of those blasted, ubiquitous eagles from the decade of the U.S. bicentennial finally came in handy.”