saucer ride

I lean sideways to look out at the billowing parachute,

 

 

I have gone to the fair with the yellow paint on the X-riders and the bare knuckle boxing and the little kid riding high up on the giant machine

 

 

I am caught between the houses a dog is bowling his way down the street and I turn to get in the machine and the kid follows, I see myself and the kid in the ferris wheel

 

 

there are free airplane rides, I am told but before long it is just me ’cause the kid has left me where I am, way in the top of my grandfathers butternut tree

 

 

 

it is afternoon and the knot in my head punks and bonks away, the warm wind wants to lean me now over to the right, my mother is about to feint

 

 

my grandfather is lying there on the picnic table still as a sleeping athlete with moss growing around him as the eyes of my mother squint into the sun, she

 

 

is getting younger and has come home from the fair, her hand in the gloved hand of her father like a photograph on the mantel over the woodstove at my grandfathers house.

 

 

suddenly and slowly I look and see myself a tiny kid, wolf-like grinning around and around spinning on the saucer-cup ride, howling and howling with delight

Reviews

[cartera]

A wel-written piece that speeeds us along and twists us as emotions are introduced and memories awakened.
Good writng.
Well done.
ATB
Alex.

[Ed Hart]

this is a wonderful piece, magical and delightful, just like the disarray of childhood

[...]

. an amazingly vivid piece of writing ... like an unforgettable photograph ... the title is very magical too ...

[Emily B]

never grow up too much