Strong Weak Genes

She lay quiet as an icicle in the trick box before being sawed in half. This is her first
memory of shrinking. She waits for the gasp of the audience under the fractured stage light
heat. Her brain goes ladybug. The night before, an unassuming guest at her tarot reading
asks if she is secretive. “Yes, she says, so secretive I don’t call it secretive. I call it
protective.” She likes to roll up her money into long cylinders like cigarettes. Can we blame
it on the moon today for making her the sign of a crab, walking sideways into life
anticipating danger with her tank chelipeds that hold the world at bay? After her shows,
she makes rice crispy treats to tickle her sugar complex. All her masks watch from their
pedestals on the red marble kitchen counter. Last night’s dream—her masks caught fire
and one by one the buttery latex melted onto the counters, but she was too weak to pull the
pin out of the fire extinguisher.

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Amanda Chiado is the author of Vitiligod: The Ascension of Michael Jackson (Dancing Girl Press). Her poetry and short fiction has most recently appeared in Rhino, The Pinch Journal and Barren Magazine. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart & Best of the Net. She is the Director of Arts Education at the San Benito County Arts Council, is a California Poet in the Schools, and edits for Jersey Devil Press. www.amandachiado.com