The September sun set two hours ago.
Gewgaw hawkers in canvas rows smell
of salt-water taffy, and rancid grease.
Harsh white filaments strobe and stutter
inside bulbs strung like interrogation lights
from every ride, ring toss and dog stand.
Jantzen Beach is lit like a rogue holiday.
Daddy hands me a towering bouffant of pink
spun sugar, tearing chunks of cotton cumulus
in his meaty hands, unraveling the gift down
to an anemic, bald paper cylinder.
I am eight, innocent, and diminished
like wrack, or pocket lint, a fledgling
next to Daddy.
Every time I remember Daddy
it is just he and I; my siblings home—sick, or
gone.
He says, “Don’t be a chicken.”
It is a tottering, rickety-rackety, click
and clang of wood, metal and screams crescendo,
decrescendo in call and answer.
At the roller coaster arc and axis and spin
women’s hair riles like eel grass subject
to brutal, fluctuating tides.
My knees clack. A wind-blown leaf,
red as any omen, catches in my sock.
There is no demarcation between fear and awe.
Even a neglectful parent hesitates
before leaving an eight-year old unattended
in the deep dusk.
If I don’t go, he can’t go.
Spoilsport.
Big-Baby.
Thumb-sucker.
Gutless.
Chicken.
Clammy salt-water air and sweat,
the familiar stale beer close, and in the
distance
another child’s pee.
We lift, and I mute screams—
fast forward to forever.
Bruised by the side wall, bruised belly,
the seat guard rail, thrown against Daddy’s bulk
and back, like a pink gingham ball.
Wasn’t I fearless?
Was I not brave?
For you?
After, Daddy says “I want my own bumper car.”
Two boys bump me into a corner
and Daddy whizzes by and whizzes by chortling.
