In Which the Country Is an Abandoned Amusement Park by Catherine Pierce

Here is the wrecked Zipper, its cages
warrened now with rabbits and crabgrass.

Here is the splintering concession stand.
Once you bought cotton candy and gave

not a thought to how something so very
there was instantly so very not, only the pinging

afterfeel of sugar against your molars.
Here is the wooden coaster. Once it hurtled

down the tracks and you threw your hands
high and shrieked. It was a lark then

to be helpless, to know your car
might careen off the curve and launch

into the far-below pines, but probably not.
Here is a funhouse. How was it fun,

once, to see your face as not your face?
You try to remember, but your mouth

is so warped, and your eyes look wider
with every step. Like you could fall into them.

Like they can’t believe what they’re seeing.

Catherine Pierce‘s most recent book of poems is The Tornado Is the World (Saturnalia 2016); her other books are The Girls of Peculiar (2012) and Famous Last Words (2008). Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Boston Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. She co-directs the creative writing program at Mississippi State University.