Emerald City Blues
By Antino Art
Those midnight rides on the Ferris wheel
in our favorite weather-beaten town by the sea
became the gold standard of single girl-dad traditions.
Remember how we’d rise with the smoke from the rooftops,
Float over the harbor with the container ships.
One last spin before they closed for the night,
Ice cream after in the abandoned arcade
beside the wood carvings of gold rush miners.
We had the wheel to ourselves
and could have gone anywhere.
We’d go in circles
to revel in where we are:
Weightless as the seagulls over the bay,
Ensconced in a watercolor painting of a carnival
at the eye of a gentle rainstorm.
When we spin in place,
we relive lost time.
We rode the highs and lows
through our darkest hour on that creaky wheel,
if only to enjoy the view of the pier from all 360 angles.
We could not count the hints of brightness up there-
only soak them in, like the overcast blanket
draped on top of the skyline.
As soon as we stepped off the ride,
the only thing we talked about
was going again
and again.