'Funhouse Memory', by Preston Ham
Funhouse Memory
Old children panting in mirrors finding
carnival variations of selves
wide laughing narrow waving tickets for minutes
crusty yellow light chamber trickling
down seduction of cheap fried foods.
Slide-ride angel-burlap-bag-bottom-kids gasp and wee
but can’t match answer every thrill for thrill.
That was a family reunion. That was why
we’re there, he said later in a living room
at my browsing through 35mm photographs.
This one, the girl unpinning her hair
do I hold the picture this way or that?
He yawned and closed his watery eyes
as if all of gravity leaned back against
his lumbar-pillow-thoughts
his slippers off, a cup of decaffeinated coffee
emptied but occupying his hands.
Preston Ham is a poet and school psychologist intern in Washington State where he has the privilege of helping students who are often marginalized navigate physical, mental, and spiritual boundaries. His poems have been published in The Manastash Literary Journal and are forthcoming in Abstract Magazine.