I wish my body didn’t hurt
so much, so I could walk
forever around
the Blue Hill Fair. Yesterday,
those clouds were suspicious
and dark. I had to remind myself we
were not in Kansas, there would be
no tornado−except for a ride called
that. I used to go on those rides with
my pal Julie. Now you’re my pal, and ever since
I had my gall bladder removed, rides that shake are
a bad idea.

You were not convinced about the fried dough,
which is really just a donut stretched out. I would have been
the-earth-is-flat kind of person. You would have known
the earth is round, but everyone would have thought
you were wrong!

Then the mountain. Blue Hill Mountain. Which isn’t really
a mountain. It’s a monadnock.
Blue Hill Monadnock! Look it up! That in
the background, with the tribute to Charlotte’s Web in
the foreground. Wilbur, Templeton, sheep. What’s a pony
doing there? There was no pony in Charlotte’s Web! That pony
should be moved back there with the horse pull, so he or she
can dream of being a Percheron, harnessed, muscles
ripping, dragging concrete blocks on demand through
an invisible fallowed field.

But what wizard is this with his
Hansel & Gretel oven? His staff? His
powder? High up on a makeshift stage while his
black Newfoundland sleeps below? He goes
from powder to oven, to flame, twirling
his staff in between, clipping the expanding
bubble. It’s orange. Now red. Is he making, what?
A hot dog? That would be silly.
This is much, much
more.

Finally, the breath of life, the bubble becomes
an orb,
catching the sunlight that breaks through
the clouds, past
the mountain, to illuminate
you and me, this
moment,
us.