Jennifer Rouse

Carousel #8

Wasn’t it funny? How I
just wanted to be mirth,
the release of every breath
around a turn, and the way
a body sways into a feeling.
Like when you slip the
stirrups to the perfect middle
and climb the saddle to standing,
drunk again on the beauty
of going absofuckinglutely
nowhere. Mirth. Has a little
taste of cry at its core. You
have to hold something
down. You have to hold so
much down. To let mirth out.

You were the feeling
I swayed into. I was
the breath against your austere
porcelain neck. And mirth.