At the fair

it was the thrills and screams 
that lured her to join the fair grounds
of high wire acts, defying gravity    


the applause thundering after hushed breaths,
swinging the line with nerves of steel   
was her opium rush, filled with crushed ice    


but today, her chest is a desert  
moat of sand clings to trembling fingers
from nearly squishing the squirrel that unexpectedly ran 
towards her car on the road for a massage appointment  


she almost got a whiplash and saw firecrackers lighting up 
the summer sky,  falling from the balance beam spitting 
grey from all the stress, but she remembered to  


keep head back, arms loose, belt tight, as the wheel
unexpectedly plummetted to ground in lightning flash


the image of blind boy, playing the violin, thoughts visible as 
sun gazing so intensely, passes through her like an electric shock,        


the plastic car seats rock and spin in dizzy bumpy ride,  
numbed cold, she tries to stand upright again,   


her lover left last night,  
stealing all love poems she labored, 
her father's heart is feebly weak, 
from eating all the smoked pork ribs


but she slaps on the clown's paint, flashes a smile
the show is starting, the paying crowd is clapping  


you don't need a fortune teller
to tell you that time is a river,


and 
life is not (a) fair. 


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads:  Snap Baby 
and D'verse Poets Pub:  Poetics:   Fun fair 


picture credit:   here