Summer Solstice

For an evening we loosen our grip
on the girls, their bodies too sweaty
to hold. We find we are whole
without them, without their fathers
who have retreated to the far side
of the field. We count our fingers,
our toes, roll rum-soaked cherries
we’ve fished from the punch bowl
around our mouths and watch
our three girls strike the piñata
as it circles drunkenly around them.

They don’t see how it hangs
by its neck,
off kilter from where their daddies
have strung it up. They reel
about and squeal with each twitch
of the stick. The dog barks in its pen,
maddened by the girls’ blindness and this
animal that smells like no rabbit
it’s ever seen. The stick swishes
and swishes until our smallest
girl connects, sends bits of crepe
paper flying. The girls take turns
beating the piñata until it splits
and spills its innards on the ground.
They scrabble in the dirt
in matching yellow dresses
then run to us —
sticky-mouthed, incandescent.

We find we are ready
to draw them in again, ready
to wash their faces, their hands
as we praise them
for their mercilessness.