Big shadows

Theater of Shadows

BY DEREK N. OTSUJI Nights we could not sleep—
summer insects singing in dry heat,
short-circuiting the nerves—
Grandma would light a lamp,
at the center of our narrow room,
whose clean conspiracy of light
whispered to the tall blank walls,
illuminating them suddenly
like the canvas of a dream.

Between the lamp and wall
her arthritic wrists grew pliant
as she molded and cast

improbable animal shapes moving
on the wordless screen:
A blackbird, like a mynah, not a crow.

A dark horse's head that could but would not talk.
An ashen rabbit (her elusive self)
triggered in snow

that a quivering touch (like death's)
sent scampering into the wings
of that little theater of shadows

that eased us into dreams.