I love scanning or flipping through poetry journals and discovering a first publication. Or discovering a debut collection at a bookshop. A while back, I found this poem, “Why I Retell My Grandparents Bubbemeises and Other Wisdoms,” by Liza Halley and laughed out loud when I read the last line. Just the word: bubbemeise, delights me. Last week, I came across a new collection, Inconsolable Objects, by Nancy Miller Gomez. Her insightful and brilliant poem, “Tilt-A-Whirl” reminded me of summers long ago, of those awful rides at the State Fair that my sisters and I would spin around and around on, daring one another to do it again and again, the rides a perfect metaphor for the magic and terror of childhood.
Tilt-A-Whirl
It was a hot day in Paola, Kansas.
The rides were banging around empty
as we moved through the carnival music and catcalls.
At the Tilt-A-Whirl we were the only ones.
My big sister chose our carriage carefully,
walking a full circle until she stopped.
The ride operator didn’t take his eyes off her
long dark hair and amber eyes, ringed
like the golden interior of a newly felled pine.
She didn’t seem to notice him lingering
as he checked the lap bar and my sister asked
in her sweetest, most innocent — or maybe
not-so-innocent — voice, Can we have a long ride
please, mister? When he sat back down
at the joystick, he made a show
of lighting his smoke while the cage
of his face settled into a smile
I would one day learn to recognize,
and then those dizzying red teacups began to spin
my sister and me into woozy amusement.
We forgot the man, the heat, our thighs
sticking to the vinyl seats, our bodies glued
together in a centrifugal blur of happiness
beneath a red metal canopy
as we picked up speed and started to laugh,
our heads thrown back, mouths open,
the fabric of my sister’s shirt clinging
to the swinging globes of her breasts
as we went faster, and faster,
though we had begun to scream Stop!
Please stop! Until our voices grew hoarse
beneath the clattering pivots and dips,
the air filling with diesel and cigarettes, and the man
at the control stick, waiting for us
to spin toward him again, and each time he cocked his hand
as if sighting prey down the barrel of a gun.
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Author: Nin Andrews
