The Ferris wheel flickers, the pirate ship crests to an uncertain pause--
night encroaches full of drab hopes lined up in the sunset like sticky soda bottles.
Sequins from a torn dress twinkle in the marsh.
New arrivals find the muddy fields and park among trampled grasses.
There’s an omnipresent hiss-- perhaps it’s the wind or a new kind of insect.
Wearing a top hat and diving goggles, a scarecrow presses its face into the windows of empty cars, looking for something, someone.
Shadows waver across the purple wall.
Beyond heat dreams, beyond candy and grease and sex in the dark, a river gull catches her first glimpse of the sea.
Amee Nassrene Broumand is an Iranian American writer from the Pacific Northwest. A three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in numerous journals including Glass: A Journal of Poetry (Poets Resist), Rust + Moth, Barren Magazine, Sundog Lit, and Empty Mirror. Find her on Twitter @AmeeBroumand.