Christine Gosnay
The World’s Fair
When I’m up here thinking about my pockets, it’s mostly canon about you
This is what I was meant to wear, even if I’ve got nothing to carry
Even if my hands are busy at their carnival fidgeting
I’ve got to have some thing to hide, or at least my age to prove
My glasses are missing and the too long, didn’t read books lie
Simply everywhere, the slim ones I love to squeeze all fled or filched away
Tomorrow, you’d never know I slept with you below my tongue today
Come at me like a vandal while I’m squint-eyed in the sun
What colors will you find flushing between these old arms of mine?
Anything you’ve become can fit there. You entire can fit there, and your fireworks
too.
The ropes of personal freedom are coiled with absurdity
Fork your ear to the roar of the candle shop. Listen to the Catherine wheel cry.
This is how I greet you from the Ferris wheel. Now you light up your mouth and
fly.
Christine Gosnay lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, where she serves as editor of The Cossack Review. Her writing features in DIAGRAM, Beecher's Magazine, TheNewerYork, [PANK], Squaw Valley Review, and The Rumpus. She is a recent alumna of the Bread Loaf and Tin House Writers' Conferences and was a finalist for the Philip Booth Prize in 2012.
Return to May 2014 Edition
When I’m up here thinking about my pockets, it’s mostly canon about you
This is what I was meant to wear, even if I’ve got nothing to carry
Even if my hands are busy at their carnival fidgeting
I’ve got to have some thing to hide, or at least my age to prove
My glasses are missing and the too long, didn’t read books lie
Simply everywhere, the slim ones I love to squeeze all fled or filched away
Tomorrow, you’d never know I slept with you below my tongue today
Come at me like a vandal while I’m squint-eyed in the sun
What colors will you find flushing between these old arms of mine?
Anything you’ve become can fit there. You entire can fit there, and your fireworks
too.
The ropes of personal freedom are coiled with absurdity
Fork your ear to the roar of the candle shop. Listen to the Catherine wheel cry.
This is how I greet you from the Ferris wheel. Now you light up your mouth and
fly.
Christine Gosnay lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, where she serves as editor of The Cossack Review. Her writing features in DIAGRAM, Beecher's Magazine, TheNewerYork, [PANK], Squaw Valley Review, and The Rumpus. She is a recent alumna of the Bread Loaf and Tin House Writers' Conferences and was a finalist for the Philip Booth Prize in 2012.
Return to May 2014 Edition