by Anne Kazak
The Ticket
Step right up, the man in balloon pants barks, ushering sticky children
into the House of Mirrors. Look at me! the children shriek, the zoetrope
of flesh flashing by, as bodies and T-shirts shrink and wave, grow, divide,
limbs elongate and collapse, changes from a future they’re missing yet.
First time I held a gun not a pistol with water was at the midway, gave
the man some change for a ticket to take aim at sideways balloons in
pastel colors, pops of noise, sold as skill. At the midway, a hammer
rings a buzzing bell. Like in movies. You learn by watching strangers.
You get ducks in a row in a dirty blue plastic pond. The ride bar
on the Tilt a Whirl is red and rusted, and you test its lock before
the jerk and spin. Riders shriek as they tip and roll, swing and
twirl as globes of light streak overhead. Sounds like Change me!
Surrounds, spinning. We know but pretend not to know these thrills
are seasonal, or at least until one of the girls from school runs off
with a magician, as if to prove her mother wrong. Change was all
I ever wanted, like holding some big stuffed bear in cartoon colors,
the bigger, the better, so I could strut the midway like someone’s prize.
Strangers shuffle fast at the fairgrounds. Their smells, nearly tolerable
in the burn of cotton candied air.
Put up the tents, unwind the thick extension cords, any town can be
a carnival. It’s all I ever wanted. One more pair of new jeans for the fair.
Now you see it. Metal stakes pulled up, brown grass, clumps of dirt.
Balloon tatters color circles of chain link that surrounds the schoolyard.
The poster in the drugstore window, gone.
The drugstore, too.
Michigan native Jessica Cohn’s first poetry collection, GRATITUDE DIARY (2024), was named the Great Northwest Book Festival winner for the genre. The author of dozens of nonfiction books, she revels in the way poetry says what cannot otherwise be said. For additional background, please see jessicacohn.net https://www.facebook.com/jessica.cohn.5 @JesCohn.bsky.social
Anne Kazak is a psychologist and photographer who cannot remember a time when she didn’t have a camera in her hand. Using cameras or drones, she loves landscapes, capturing the beauty of nature, focusing on light, patterns, and telling a story about places. Her journeys draw her to abandoned spaces and the documenting the history of institutions. As vestiges of the past, these places prompt us to rethink the present. She also frequently uses diptychs or triptychs to juxtapose discrepancies and reveal unexpected connections. www.annekazakphotography.comhttps://www.instagram.com/annekazak.