“She steps into La Roue de la Fortune movie theater”
She steps into La Roue de la Fortune movie theater
off the Jersey Turnpike, buys a ticket,
and so swiftly the waters roll
above her instinctual visions: Plaza, Il Piazzo,
creep of film over the sound of the words
piano, purr, whisper across her neck,
one door opens another,
in the labyrinthine pitch to preserve
order, the expulsion from Eden, the dark
soda up her clear plastic straw, reels
of rodents, popcorn, teenage workers,
acne, blood and circulation turn to ice
inside this mechanized paradise,
where reality meets the sound of gardens
growing past their makers’ dreams,
growing strange and outrageous.
She stops to check her phone
and the phone lights up, Putin, Botox,
Trump, the garden grows outward, up,
to each side, the ghosts are simply
plants who forgot to stop growing;
they groan, shriek, quake, giggle, gurgle,
stare, and point fingers at the living.
I’m glad I’m in love, she thinks.
Source: Poetry (December 2018)