Tuesday 1 April 2014

Words in Motion 2014- National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. Throughout April, the Culture Blog will be showcasing the selected poems from the 2014 Words in Motion program. For more information about the program, visit: www.woodbuffalo.ab.ca/WordsInMotion


Coney Island

The smell is like bitter rubber
or A-B-C gum stamped into the concrete:
the A-Train that takes us to Coney Island.

A woman wraps polka-dot viscose around her face,
eyes shift down to the floor
as her children pass the time with leap frog,
legs slick with a continual bend and snap.

Every freak show has a clown
that looks like a checkerboard,
triangle tears slowly sweating off his face,
paint surely ready to bubble like a fried egg.

Sally does burlesque on the beach,
tassels are glittering against sun-damaged skin

and distract the men on Steeplechase Pier,
who bait their hooks with a bloodworm,
swollen clitella tempts the bluefish that
fill their pails, fins stack up like poker chips.

It is 85 degrees in April, the gulls
are covering the shoal and how odd it is that
a fat brown bottle washed to the shore
is what we can relate to the most.
Sarah Watson

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