A Poem for My Late Mom

TILT-A-WHIRL

One hot summer night in ‘65
we all went to Palisades Park,
"swings all day and after dark,"

me, Mommy, Daddy and Bobby.
I couldn't get enough
of the rides, the rides, the rides!

Oh, I wanted to be turned upside-down,
spun like cotton candy
until I was pink with dizziness,

holding onto my father for dear life,
while screaming faster, faster, faster!
We stopped at the Tilt-a-Whirl

where you're chained up
inside a cage
and the bottom drops out

while you're spinning,
upside-down, around and sideways.
No one wanted to try it,

except Mommy.
We couldn't believe it.
The same woman who shuddered

when I did wheelies down the big hill
on my bike, who wouldn't put her head
under the water at the town pool,

this same woman was being
transported to another dimension,
where lights danced

in myriad of colors, where
swirling white and silver metal rims
danced above people's lollipop heads.


No one wanted to try it
except Mommy.

We looked up, all of us
never taking our eyes
off that magical silver cage, glowing against the night,

spinning into eternity, cutting
its own path through outer space
with our mother inside.