BY
L EFTOVERS D ANIEL R OM O
My palms are a mosaic of breadcrumbs and nacho cheese. Sack lunches are bagged nostalgia. I recall butterflies pinched from petunias; dusty wings painted my fingertips the color of crushed sun. I kept tally of their bodies shish-kabobed through needles in the neighbor’s cactus, and those slammed to the cement—two checks for breaking the creature in half. Scurrying ants in grass were singed with a magnifying glass throughout sixth grade: crackling kiln of thorax. I experimented with smoke and other plants a year later; sometimes my eyes still sting from the fumes. I like to think I’m a better person now because I’m no longer a lonely only child. I like to think my children will be better than me because I’ve never had to give Child Services a guided tour of my home. I see my dad’s clenched hands when I raise mine to my face. Spy a hangnail. Rip it from skin.
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