Roller Coaster
by Steve Kissing

Few are still

             Interested in riding

This relic,

                        This wooden

                                     Dinosaur.

      The crowds

      Have moved

      On to the taller,

      Faster coasters,

      The ones

      That glide over

      Polished

      Metal tubes.

 

             But I prefer

             The bounce

 

                        Of the old-school coasters,

             The shaking

                                     And rattling,

                        The grinding

                                     And creaking,

 

             The sense that the whole

                                     Shebang is one snap

                                                 Of a two-by-four

 

                                     From collapsing

 

                                                 In on itself—

 

                        We’re kindred

                                                             Spirits.

 

STEVE KISSING likes ice cream, especially chocolate chip. He also likes shiny things. His poems have appeared (or soon will) in such print and online journals as Thick With Conviction, Best Poem, Poetry Friends, Boston Literary Magazine, The Blue Ash Review, Bolts of Silk, and Paterson Literary Review. Kissing’s first chapbook, Survival of the Fittest (Big Table Publishing) will appear later this year.

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