I love the carnival
I don’t love butterflies or photographs
But I love the wings and faces
When they’re caught in the lights of the rusted rides

I love the way the light dances on your face
And makes amber to hold your pupils
I love the way you blur when we go in circles
The way your nectarine laugh tangs over the children’s
When the wind makes your hair a fury
And your teeth are naked in the glow

I love the ferris wheel
Over the river at night
The fake dahlias hanging from the booth tresses
The lilac smell of warm nightfall
And the cold fence wires passing over my fingers
While four eyes are hitched to the stars

I love the immortality
Like a kitten I was too afraid to touch
Delicate as a paper ornament
When I would twitch around 9:30
At the thought of my feet on the carpet
And my raspberry joints turning sour again
You overhearing the mortal in me
Became my midnight sigher

Ambrosia, I think
Is made of wet cotton candy
And the games we won

It’s made of teacups
The peer in the dark
And the way you looked into adult eyes
Older than they will ever be
And more innocent than their children
Your sneakers covered in dust
And your head lolling against the car window
With our hands touching like wind chimes
In our candlelit drive by the ocean
Your lips would open ever so slightly
When you started to fall asleep
As though you had something more to say

Man,
You carry me higher than any big drop
With your arms at your side
And when I go to the carnival at night
I still look up at the stars