AT THE COUNTY FAIR

AT THE COUNTY FAIR
—for Sharon Doubiago

The carnival straddled a limnal boundary 
between civilization & endless fields of corn. 
A miracle in the bright dust and mirrored lake
deep summer bloomed in cotton candy colors.
For a moment she was screaming,
& laughing against a bright sky
as the Fairest Wheel lifted her
weightless against the burden
of her father’s darkness.

In a constant elegy of ascent & death,
the Fairest Wheel dizzied them up to the stars,
& plunged them in o the dwarfed laps of broken families.
For a moment, she forgot she lived 
the enchanted sleep of Snow White 
where in dreams she rode a carousel pony. 
Between her clenched teeth, not a rose, 
but a blanket emitted a high-pitched sound
as a bright bloom escaped from her gown.

As she loosened herself from the horizon, 
she was forever tumbling against a silken sky.
Her blonde hair, a temporary sun
eclipsed & eclipsing the retextured sunlight.

For a moment she forgot what she was
becoming, a black dahlia.
Dust & parched earth. You could taste it 
in the air, acrid like carbolic soap & sweat.
Soon the rains would come. 

—Maureen Hurley
Walker Creek Ranch, 10/15.2006