Someone painted adult bodies over all the children
when I wasn’t looking.
I had been blind to the artist’s cruel strokes
until they were revealed to me
under the flashing dance-lights
of my uncle’s wedding party.

My new aunt wears slippers
so she isn't taller than the groom—the one who said he’d never marry.
Their daughter is the flower girl;
I visited her in the hospital nursery that Easter afternoon three years ago
and tickled her under the Christmas tree at my Grandma's house
when she could do nothing but smile and kick her pajama'd legs.

My dad pays a dollar to waltz with the bride,
and I ask my fourteen-year old cousin out on the floor
and flirt with his best friend as we serve apple cider.
Who taught me to do this?

Jacob sits underneath the bar like a man
in his tiny tuxedo,
patting the place beside him and inviting me.
"Sit me.  Sit me."
And he runs around the dance floor
with black and red balloons tied to his belt
while his mother bounces his baby sister on her knee.

I used to play Barbie dolls with her.

The cousins who once competed with me for the position
of flower girl
at my favorite aunt's wedding
are out back smoking, liquor on their breath,
their boyfriend's lips on their necks.
I taught them what sex was
in my basement while we undressed Ken dolls.
I should have taught them about birth control too—
but it didn’t matter, because they all said they’d never do that.
I said I might.

And I remember what they do not;
I remember the little girls before they
mothered children who look like the Cabbage Patch Dolls
we played with.
I remember the dreams and I wonder if I'm the only one
who is striving to make them to come true.
My past and my present and my future are running together
under the flashing dance lights
and I love the painting even though someone spilled water on it
and blurred all the colors.