Asimov's SF, February 2009 by Issue 02 # February

Author:Issue 02 # February
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-10T14:01:41+00:00

Poetry: REGULAR RIDERS by Ruth Berman

The ticket seller at the merry-go-round

Couldn’t help noticing the tall, plump woman,

All in black bombazine

In line every day for a ticket.

Well, why not—it wasn’t

Just an amusement kids liked—

Adults rode it, too.

Only she never saw her ride it.

And even on the inmost circle

Of leaping wooden beasts,

That tall and stout and stern,

She should have been visible

Speeding nowhere in time

To the pumping calliope,

But somehow she never was there.

Sometimes the ticket taker

Thought she might have throned herself

In one of the gilded chariots.

They didn’t bound, but they

Circled just as fast.

You could get just as dizzy with the ride

Spinning toward infinity.

There was a youngster, though,

Sometimes on a unicorn,

Sometimes on a gold-eyed horse,

Or the lion

Or the ostrich,

Even once in a while a chariot.

She wore a faded old cotton dress

Buttoned up the back

In a hard-to-reach way

And belted with a cotton sash

Over a pleated skirt,

And in winter a baggy no-color

Warm wool sweater.

She seemed to get a ride in every day,

But the ticket seller never

Seemed to spot her in the line.

Of course, she was a little thing,

Hard enough to spot

Even on the silver leaping bear

At the top of its bounce.

The ticket seller sometimes thought—

But then she didn’t,

Seeing as it wasn’t possible.

But even so she never seemed

To spot either the youngster in the ticket line

Or the woman all in black in the crowd,

When the merry-go-round

Fell silent and the riders from before

Slid off the quiet animals,

And the line surged through the gate

Running to get dibs

On their favorite animals,

Before the music and the ride

Set out again.

—

The girl with the cotton sash

Seemed to be able to get the unicorn

Any time she liked.

—Ruth Berman

Copyright (c) 2008 Ruth Berman

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