1976

from ROAD TRIPS, poems

KIDDIE RIDES

I awakened and longed with desperation

To return to Brooklyn.

I wanted to ride until dawn on a creaky

Ferris wheel left behind by a carnival and

To visit the still standing luminous

Chartreuse home of my grandmother.

Memories behind stained glass windows

Beckoned like some naked amnesiac

Who struggles to reach home.

In the air, I could still smell the full bodied scent

Of burnt potato pancakes that wafted through that

House and I often glimpsed the ghosts of ancestors

Lurking and sucking juice from the backyard peach tree.

I longed with desperation to return to old Brooklyn.

At 5 P.M. I slipped into my car

And drove south through Manhattan.

The pink sun soon sizzled on the Hudson River

And set, to my right, in bright blazing Technicolor.

In the distance, one kittiwake

Seemed to have found the way.

I headed for the elixir of the spinning

Teacups: the kiddie rides at intoxicating

Coney Island... in the most haunted and

Haunting of places: Brooklyn.

Marjorie J. Levine © 1991

photos courtesy of Frederick Piccarello