by Rikki Santer

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At the end of a trolley line, a century turns

and the most perfect name for an amusement park takes root

 in land destined for the language of twirl and twaddle.

 Damp shoulders sway in the open-air ballroom, tongues swirl

 in dark tunnels—a nest for boxy boats. Roller coaster Jack

 Rabbit sometimes runs in reverse—the Back Wabbit.

 And on a lilting carousel, a cotillion of carved horses rises

 likes waves, each mane more erotic than the last.

 Logic takes giddy vacation

 in Laffin Lena’s fun house, proud bruises brighten

 on manic, bumper-car parades. In this park, gear grease

 glistens in an empire of interlocking days.

Then came the fires. ’84. A welding torch ignited inside

 The Lost River. ’86. The northwest quadrant in flames.

 ’01. The ballroom extinguished.

Mt city’s sad trilogy, then the wooden spines

of Wild Cat and Jack Rabbit bulldozed

 for the currency of grass.

These days, the carousel,

 pillaged and refurbished for a Brooklyn gallery,

 gleams impotent and mute—

 a Pentecostal congregation plots for the emptied land,

 their future City of God—

 and in postmortem, dot org merchandise prevails:

 I adore the logos on thongs,

 the logos on coffee mugs,

 the logos on tiny shirts for dogs.

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Rikki Santer was born and raised in Youngstown. Her poems have appeared in various publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Heavy Feather Review,
Slab, Slipstream, [PANK], Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Grimm, Hotel Amerika and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including 2023 Ohio Poet of the Year, Pushcart, Ohioana and Ohio Poet book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her twelfth poetry collection, Resurrection Letter: Leonora, Her Tarot, and Me, is a sequence in tribute to the surrealist artist Leonora Carrington and was recently published by the arts press, Cereal Box Studio.