Little Fires, by Sarah Nichols

Albino Sword Swallower at a Carnival, Maryland, by Diane Arbus (USA) 1970.

Little Fires

My mother learned it from her mother. I don’t
remember when she thought I was ready. One day,

I was a girl, watching her mother eating impossible
things. I never asked how she became. 

The next day, it was my turn. My mother said
lie back like an offering. A sacrifice for tin and

fire.

The wind stirred my skirt, and I opened my
mouth, combustible now. 

My mother told me the first one is mine to
keep.

It rusts inside you, flaking off. A garden of 
little fires.

Sarah Nichols

Sarah Nichols is a co-editor of Thank You for Swallowing, an online journal of feminist protest poetry. She is  the author of three chapbooks, including She May Be a Saint (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016), and Edie (Whispering): Poems from Grey Gardens (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her work has also appeared in Yellow Chair Review, Rogue Agent, and Noble/Gas Qtrly.