You wander onto a tilt-a-whirl,
an order of steak fries in hand.
You are instantly jolted from your old coat
by a springtime that longs for her summer.
Tourists are pushing through Frontierland.
In the woods, plumes of steam go drifting.
Then, some toothless boy in yellow denim
drops his cone to sticky hot pavement
and begins to scream bloody blue murder.
The artificial, red raspberry cream
splatters onto your lover’s new shoes.
Favorably, she removes her flowered sunhat
and kisses you a thousand miles deep
and down the way at a Bavarian beer tent
an obscure Pete Townsend song
you have liked for two decades
hits the tree-mounted loudspeakers
like a dazzling dream.
Under pink hints of dusk light,
streams of pure communal love
blossom from the tulips
lined in rows at your feet.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 1.
Michael Hackney has recently penned the poetry for The Unforgivable Gossamer Sadness, a poetry and rock opera (coauthored with music by Scott Fish). He has published three books: The Downturn (ChipmunkaPublishing, 2011), Midwestern Shoes—Your Poetic Self All Over Again (Publishamerica, 2007), and Learning To Write (poems, Huron Valley Publishing, 2003, in collaboration with George Schmidt). His works have appeared in Thirteen Myna Birds, Cornfed Angel, Broadway Bards, Gasconade Review, Artifact Nouveau, White Wall Review, and Passengers Journal. He lives in Toledo, Ohio.
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