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Medway River, Carousel
The carousel cresting down the Medway River, half
submerged, the horses dragging.
Round, the housing there all year, boarded up. It’s
floating now, the horses turning on the water,
making sure I get a horse, not a stupid turkey or donkey,
even a rooster. What’s the point.
the pull, the feel of flying. I lean out and look for my
parents in the crowd, as close
careening down the Medway in November half-dark, the water
close to flooding. There’s
the raucous music, smell of pink spun cotton and the juicy
rush of a MacIntosh apple
Dad in a shirt and tie, talking with a salesman he knows –
it’s as if I’ve never seen him before.
grade-school in Queen’s County, even ours. Walking until
you could fall down, boys
the animal barns low and quiet, the cattle steaming in
their stalls, ribbons, kids. It’s night
there’s a carousel he has to photograph, two horses, small
magic thing, icon from his pictures. I’m
thirty-eight going on seventeen. We make the shot, the
wind’s wet
for keeps, animating every still he ever made, peopling all
the blank, dark frames, making
of impossible things.
and drive and beat. It’s coming towards me,
their coarse and tangled manes, hind legs
down the river, the horses sliding, nothing’s
slipping, buckling – cherry stained E. Alex Pierce, 2013 |
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