Fun Park Woman
Along the Jersey coast,
dusk hushes the sand with rose,
clings like wet gauze to the heads
of wind-fluffed stragglers.
Summer, projector-eyed, spools its reel:
liquor light from bent tavern doors,
tree limbs thick with salt.
She’s stationed in the mouth of a clown,
selling turns on the carousel –
sixteen beasts and two sleighs,
chipped lacquer, creaky melodies
from a phony fairground organ.
Bathers retreat in damp procession.
But the surf persists,
like a stubborn blood rhythm— in, out, in.
Inside rooms pulse with bass and cologne,
flesh dazzles. Hands trail virtue
and forget to retrieve it.
The tide doesn't change. The bodies do.
Only she, red-wristed, pockets hung
low with coins, goes nowhere fast -
circling, always, with the horses.
About the Author: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Midnight Mind, Willow Review and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the MacGuffin, Touchstone and Willow Review.
Image Credit: John Margolies “Carousel, Asbury Park, New Jersey” (1978) Public domain image courtesy of The Library of Congress
