The Ferris Wheel

For me, it starts
       bent-backed and kneeling low.
Impatiently I make the knots.
       You sit high on the bench, look down.
When else were we so different?
       Maybe that’s how it starts for you,
with a feeling of not knowing me
       or caring to know me.
Or maybe it’s blue cotton candy on a stick
       you see first or grey bunnies sagging
in the humidity. How much you wanted one
       which would have been fine
except I said we already had too many
       animals littering cages.
We only had one.
       However it does start for you
(I hope it’s with the cotton candy you did get)
       I know it ends for us both with a Ferris wheel,
though not a Ferris wheel
       exactly: Astro Wheel, Space Wheel, dinosaur
from the sixties with newly painted impossible arms.
       Did you know I asked you to ride
because I had shot guns with your brother,
       because I held his hand in the horror of the funhouse?
For six years you were the quiet mouse
       in my wall. We waved to your father
and two small brothers. We sank
       into the empty box.
We moved and green dropped
       away slowly then quickly.
Quickly.