Sky Coasters,Teacups and tears,
I threw up at Coney Island
in the back of a pirate ride.
With terrible acceleration
the vessel swung skyward,
stomach walls clenched
to fill my throat with pink matter—
children screaming for the ride
to stop, but I was vomiting
at Coney Island when the call
came for my Grandmother to die.
Convulsing, brown curls shading
my face I couldn’t know my tears
came for my father as he landed
a fish on Lake Michigan—
I was retching out french fries
in the realization there is no better
relief on earth than release—
still lifted up and slammed back
down, lifted and slammed—
the child beside me begging me to stop,
the astronauts orbiting earth so exactly
they could pick out their home states:
this my first time at Coney Island
and the ride never once stopped.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
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2 comments:
It seems the speaker didn't know his/her grandma died as he/she was barfing. Might it be more effective if he/she did? The sense of release seems linked with the death of the grandma, yet logically they're not related. Also I'm not sure what the father and his fishing adds to anything.
I'm going to disagree with Jenny's comment... because I think the contrast in realities is really effective--for the speaker to be experiencing something such as throwing up on a ride, which is rather significant for the speaker at the time, but which doesn't bear much significance as far as the long span of time... and then for her grandmother to have died (a totally opposite reality that matters on much more profound of a level than one puking instance). This is a really strong poem, I think.
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