feeling odd lately and I'm going back to writing to process this confusing new world.
I am lost
In an antique side show
In an antique carnival.
The carnival is closed
No barkers in the stalls
are convincing customers to invest
In things they didn’t know they wanted.
Like goldfish,
that will die in
their white take out cartons
and badly made bears
that came from china.
Canvas triangles flap over me
little dead flag
hands
mixed with strings of dizzy lightbulbs,
all swinging in the lazy wind.
Candy wrappers and bits of cardboard
go skirling down the
rows
to be caught by the
fence
and the ugly confetti wind.
The rides are dark,
no pretend boats
no pretend airplanes
no horses, or elephants, or ostriches
or hippos or carriages with benches
for the little kids.
Everything that circled its tail forever
doesn’t.
But we will tell each other about
the beauty and the lights and the dizzy
of a Ferris Wheel when you’re in love at 15.
We’ll remember the noise of the gears,
and the grease
and the laughter
and the lost children
and the games of chance we couldn’t win.
We’ll say to each other
“Remember the
merry-go-round
and the popcorn?”
And then we’ll say,
“Remember what it was like before
