Sarah Liu

Election Night Circus

I wandered the night
scrying for the sign
to my makeshift tent,
of strange delights.

I’d like a room of taffy-
colored pillow
fights and peacocks.
I’d like a fizzy lifting drink,

but they wanted me to choose: war
or famine, to check the box
for screams of the dying.

Make no mistake,
we have already chosen.
I caught the thin arm

of a Tarot reader
bony and beckoning.
In the dark, she had

dealt a new deck, she had
the cards spread out:

child falling, child sleeping,
child slipping, child
being taught
what flags mean.