Carousel

Glen Vecchione

What can you learn from it,

this strange island world going nowhere—

polychromed, the beasts and chariots spinning

in crankshaft undulations

around emptiness?

Borne up on bearings like a gymnasium-

sized skateboard, a plywood wobble at 45 rpm,

the ongepotchket bouquets are thrown into orbit

to the calliope's toot and chuff,

and children   l e a n   o u t w a r d 

                                             with streaming hair

beneath the garlanded oculi.

Still, what can you learn from the

snarling horses, impaled, frozen

black in a dead canter?

Ride the carousel.

Fix your eyes to the post.

Let the world outside run amok

in unfurling scraps of light and dark.

Hold tight to the smooth-shelled hardness

then   slowly  let   go—

a kind of practicing.

Image © Europeana

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Glen Vecchione is the author of science, math, and history books that have been translated into several languages and distributed throughout the world. His poetry and short stories appear in Missouri Review, ZYZZYVA, Cincinnati Review, Comstock Review, and Timberline Review. His new work, including a chapbook, is forthcoming from Prairie Schooner, Finishing Line Press, and Rebel Satori. Glen won the Editor’s Choice Award in Last Stanza Journal and is the featured poet in Sequestrum’s “Wonder” issue of January 2024. He was also named a Finalist in the 2022 Sewanee Review poetry competition. His first novel, “Where the Nights Smell Like Bread," released in April of 2025, has been optioned for a screenplay. Glen currently divides his time between Palm Desert, California, and Umbria, Italy.