Cycloid-shaped ferris wheel
pumping us
through fever-light. Feverish
mixed-age crowd
of locust mouths
Blistering,
in the elevator.
In the line,
prattling down my neck.
I suture myself shut with earpods.
I have happy
waiting ahead.
Today: the rain licks my face
clean like a cat’s tongue
Tomorrow: the memory fossilizes.
Routine: I am the knife
that splits its belly.
While the bloviators root
to their plastic seats,
I lean into the wind’s teeth,
my hair a live wire
sparking the rain.
If my earpod springs out,
it will pendulum
in the wind’s black hinge
until the wheel’s iron jaw
spits me back around.
I am lucky, they say,
as if luck were not just
disorder wearing a gold watch.
No bridle, no bit.
I made a covenant
with the sky’s raw throat.
I was anointed
by my own hunger.
I am the bellwether.
I have happy.
It glows ahead,
normally.
Like a bright sun.
Snehal Bhadani is an undergraduate student from Singapore whose work explores memory, identity, and the body. She writes poetry and flash fiction, and haikus for her Substack. Her work has appeared in trampset and Blue Marble Review.
Our fifth volume of The Write City Review is hot off the presses! It’s a 200-page anthology of poetry, short stories, essays, and book excerpts drawn from the Chicago Writers Association’s online publication, The Write City Magazine over the last 3 years. Order yours today.
The review will also be available for sale at the Let’s Write Conference - June 20, Printer’s Row - September 12-13, and at all Live Lit events.
