A Fistful of Moonbeams

A Fistful of Moonbeams
by emeniano acain somoza, jr.
I.
Mother used to say my brother and I will shine in any old metal business
We have huge metallurgic hands each throbbing with a steady traffic of veins
Those days, I kept an old penknife I found one morning after a storm
That was long before my mother said she had enough of my father’s lies.
II.
I loved the sound of my mother’s scissors hungrily snipping through fabrics
Satins, velvets, denims, georgette, inside her small sastreria by the sea
Father, vestigial archetype of masculine megalomania, was always out
Driving commuter vehicles on weekdays, jilting women on weekends
III.
Women would sometimes talk about their new dresses smelling of balmy ocean
At night mother would cry noiselessly as she pedaled that old Singer machine.
If I had been bold enough, I would have asked if it was about my knife or something
But father would always swagger in just in time, as mother silently wiped her tears.
IV.
Well, my boss loves to share this joke about a particular staff in his department
Who goes unnamed each time he narrates it for health-and-safety reasons
In the screening interview I caught him a bit stunned by my voluminous CV
“Let me guess, either you’re a freaking job-magnet or, you love papers.”