Ferris Wheel

Poetry / Prose

A Prose Poem / A poemy piece of prose

The line itself was brief. Stuffing her hand into a jean pocket, she found a few tickets wadded in deep, handed them over, and pushed through the door of the gondola, felt it swing as she got in. “Stay seated,” said the sign. A couple of kids filled the rest of the space. With a laugh and a jerk, the ride began: a sweep up, over the top, back down the side and up again. Pitch and roll, wheeling through the cool air that grabbed and tossed her hair. Good thing she hadn’t worn her hat.

She remembered an old dream; the kids pictured themselves celebrities, their own private paparazzi while the world spun around. Plunging through the creaking chassis, all metal, grease, and sound, the tinkled tune from the horses as they merrily go round, rushing upwards through a cloud of corn dogs and popcorn, ascending above the lights so the full stretch of the midway came into view, microwave towers winking along the horizon, carnival arms growing toward the old high school where her dad had gone, the little league fields dark this time of year, the cars snaking with glowing eyes into the fairground parking lot.

She, another spoke in the hoop of folks who had been riding thrills on that piece of ground since the 1950’s. This was not their first rodeo, not hers, not the city’s, but maybe it was for the baby in the carriage below.

She closed her eyes and let the breeze take her up and over and back into the dream, years unfolding in a long single continuous thread, winding around, a common cord, a covalent bond of countless branches, it grew from the seeds that called her, winged explorer, always coming home.

Let it take her into the time when her dad recalled the days when they would have a military display, and when her best friend’s mom the nurse used to get them in for free every night as “helpers,” who mostly helped themselves to the sights and sounds. This annual tradition that tied them all together, warts and all, until mortality cut in line and shopped among them, putting on the brakes.

Let it breathe inside her until the cart’s path relaxed from diminished horsepower, until it made its multiple stops, passengers stepping out onto solid ground, back into the present, the whiff and dust of the October night, on to the next thing, the big show and bull riders inside the colosseum, the games and prizes with their shouting hawkers, while behind them a moment later with a mechanical wheeze the wheel spun on.

This piece is another one in response to J.D. Harms’ recent Saturday Poetry Prompt on Scrittura. It’s also a love song to the HOT Fair and Rodeo, the carnival portion of which was, sadly, cancelled this year. I’m not sure if it’s poetry or prose, or a mix of both; I’ll leave that for y’all to decide.

Related posts:

Thirteen months have passed since I did my first yoga workout. That $3.38 Goodwill video has become a game-changer for this 50-year-old with chronic back problems, even on top of a lifetime of…

You need to first get corresponding index for the month and year at which you will start exporting. Check playstore to do it: Then replace the month (1-indexed), year, index range (28 to 30) and the…

Memorization is a crucial skill when it comes to mastering new vocabulary, theories, and concepts. These act as the building blocks for our understanding and it is our ability to remember them that…