Midway Psalm

The Ferris wheel, a spoked and sputtering crown, Pinned back the velvet dark. We paid our fee In crumpled bills, bought passage to the town Where gravity forgot to work its shift for me. Neon stuttered sermons: "Try Your Luck!" "See Freaks! Win Love!" The calliope’s thick breath, A sticky-sweet confection, made us drunk On promises spun sugar-brittle, sweet as death. We traded common sense for ticket stubs, Gulped down the chaos. Bumper cars collided With jarring joy, released electric grubs Of laughter down our spines, fear undecided If it should stay or flee. The Tilt-A-Whirl Unstitched the solid world, flung stars askew In streaks of cheap chrome, made the pavement curl Beneath our feet. I held tight onto you, A fixed point in the whirling, painted blur. The rifle range barked sharp, tin cans leapt high. A sad-eyed bear, impossibly demur, Watched from his perch where hopeful bullets die. We shared spun sugar, ghosting on the air, A sweetness gone before it reached the tongue, Like fortunes told by Madame Zara’s stare In smoky glass where futures, cheap, were hung. The haunted house exhaled its chilly moan. We walked through shrieks (machine-made, mostly sound), Past rubber bats and bones of plastic thrown To frighten children. On the trembling ground, The roller coaster’s skeleton outlined A shriek against the stars, a rattled breath Of riders flung through space, ecstatically blind. We felt its tremor, smelled its oil and death. Then, sudden quiet by the carousel, Its painted horses frozen mid-career, Up, down, around, beneath a tarnished spell. The music box wound down, the notes unclear, Like childhood memories half-drowned in time. The lights began to shutter, one by one. The midway sighed. The air grew thick with grime And spent excitement. All the magic, done. We walked back through the gates, the real world vast And strangely silent after all that din. Holding the cheap prize that was meant to last, A plastic star still glowing deep within Its fragile shell – a captured, fading spark, A testament to how we briefly flew Above the ordinary, through the dark, On borrowed light, just me and just... and you. The carnival's clockwork heart beat slow, then ceased, Leaving just echoes, ticket stubs, and peace.