Winter in Binghamton

Mr. Johnson’s carousels
(organs still mostly
intact)
house carriages pulled by the
slowness of horses
on a turntable.
Admission: free.
That is how
our winter moves,
each month ending where the last
one started,
four
horses abreast, one for
each week.

Ours only goes
in one direction, and even
if I loved you,
we aren’t
getting younger and they won’t
spin the carousel backwards.

I want to
break the connection
like this was a real horse
trailing the smell of
sweat and leather and
hay, not
paint and oil.
But I’ve invested so much
time
carving my initials in the bridle,
the saddle,
the rosettes and bared teeth,
I can’t pull my hand from the
curve of its neck. Maybe
next year
I say, wanting nothing but to
die steeplechasing.

But things like that don’t
happen in America. Even
Mary Poppins hasn’t tried
since 1910.
One thing always
leads to
itself,
on the carousel, and
it’s alright
except I wish they’d have told me
before I got on that
we all fall
still reaching for
the brass ring.