Marc J. Sheehan
Outside White Cloud, Michigan
Someone has built a merry-go-round that
doesn’t go-round. The fiberglass horses
are impaled on rods and connected to
a central May Pole by ribbons or streamers.
Instead of stable or midway, this static
attraction is fenced in by some pre-fab
out-buildings leased as storage units,
and just down the road is a used-car lot
sporting a suspect collection of sedans.
What’s stored in the units and why the horses
keep their pole positions is a mystery,
while none of the used-car lot’s vehicles
will be anyone’s get-away. A few
of the immobile ponies’ satiny
tethers have succumbed to the elements,
and swirl idly in the wind like flagless
prayers for a circus to magically appear
and pitch its welcoming, avaricious tents.
Marc J. Sheehan is the author of Dissenting Opinion from the Committee for the Beatitudes (Etchings Press, 2019), a collection of flash prose pieces. His poetry collection, Limits to the Salutary Effects of Upper-Midwestern Melancholy, won the Split Rock Review 2016 poetry chapbook competition. His earlier poetry collections include Vengeful Hymns (Ashland Poetry Press, 2009), winner of the Richard Snyder Prize, and Greatest Hits (New Issues Poetry and Prose, 1998). Sheehan served for many years as the communications officer for Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, and lives in Grand Haven, Michigan.
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