Before the Fall

I don’t think I can, I say.

Come on, Jean says. You’ve seen me ride it a million times.

I shake my head.

Even before Jean was THIS TALL, her brother snuck her in

And I’d stand holding her funnel cake,

Craning my neck to watch her rise

And rise, and then disappear.

Then I’d shut my eyes until the screaming

Turned to laughter and clattering feet on the platform

Jabbering about going again even before touching earth.

Come on, Jean says. You promised you’d go this year.

At the head of the line she bounces forward

One hand holding out her ticket, the other holding

Her new boyfriend’s hand (they met on the Tilt-A-Whirl).

I watch them clamber into the front car, knees smushed together.

Hey! I yelp.

Jean’s brother Eric seizes my shoulders

And marches me onto the platform

And into the nearest car. He whistles

And Jean looks back, grins, and waves at me.

I hope she is thinking, good, she changed her mind

Not, ha ha, my plan worked.

I can still get out, I tell myself

The harness presses down on my chest

Latching with metallic finality.

I could yell to the carny to let me out

I could cry till Eric kicks me out

But I know I will do none of those things.

The car lurches. No way out but through,

I say to myself in my father’s voice.

I crane my head upward as slowly we rise,

The track tick-ticking like a bomb.

There is nothing left to see but sky.

Don’t look down, Eric says,

So of course I do.

The worm in my stomach knots in terror

My legs forget they ever walked the earth.

My throat is rasping help, help, help

I am whimpering and shaking and clenching

I am clenching Eric’s arm

And he is laughing.

Everything stops.

I never noticed it before,

Shading my eyes watching Jean from below,

That pause at the tippy top

Like a tease

Like a warning

Like a breath.

From up here it lasts forever

Helpless between gravity and eternity

Between rising and falling

Eric's hand is on my thigh

The worm in my stomach is dancing

On the edge