Sestina: The Festival

I

At the cherry baptism- elephant ears dipped in oil
and Save Your Soul picketers cross Gucci shades at Cool Waves.
A girl with four bright eyes plays the flute in the road for coins-
and the tilta-whirl, fun house, and Ferris Wheel glass the bay.
Disciples from ant holes magnet the bug-zapping cherries-
where you flew too, and the bright burned your chin on the paved road.

II

and you spit cherry pits in the river from the bridge on Cass Road,
but fell short to an Egg with a turkey leg deep fried in oil
so you sulked in the soda shop, your red visor like a dangling cherry.
"Cherry salsa, cherry soda, cherry chocolate or pie?" says the salesman and waves.
You reconciled red sins and crowds repelled from the bay,
from the red wash, your rumble stomach and breath, alone you skipped coins.

III

You rode the penny ponies at Meijer til' you ran out of coins,
And by the wild hills with brick eyes you passed Florida to Indiana plates on the road
and whistled above creeping hymns and beeps from the shopping mall to the bay
where the beach bodies Kruger-link in the sand and roast like Hawaii pigs in oil-
your wrists are hot stilts and on plush boats leather skins dance- their tummies make waves.
Stilts sizzle, your dropped skull guns the blue blanket sky- stitched clouds looks like cotton cherries.

IV

You follow the visor flock to the floats, the red trumpets tromp and jag- promenade of cherries.
Red backs shadow penny wishes- grandpa said 'wish in one hand' so you scoop the coins-
beyond the tots, the fold-able chairs- the Queen, with a crown of ripe fruit- cups a slooow wave.
Karate club, veterans, high school bands and bops on the cherriot slide the road-
awwed- you bury between two beatered boys, whos bis and tris bubble in oil,
SPF splotches your shirt- one brow bows and hollow pebbles vaunt the bay.

V

Like red quacking bills- the visors flock to the shore- the open orange mouth eats the bay.
Bills spread blankets over the sand, over the bumps and lumps- pits of eaten cherries.
In dim light florescents spread from ultraviolet puffs of smoke, like water and oil.
Jeaned tweens 'woo!' as fired lights scream the sky- the billed eyes gloss like multicolored coins.
Red white streams trickle down rear view mirros of west bound Wranglers on the road-
and the coined eyes and the red bills watch the colored sparks drown in the waves.

VI

Then the babysitters and the under agers- haunting ghosts yawn in waves-
pendulum eyes fold the red piped lights and Beatled notes bounce off the bay.
Lazy-eye Bill buys a cherry pint, and you step sip spill with kaleidoscopes in the road.
3 a.m big belt badge says "cleeeear out", a tooth pick prying his pearl bed of cherries-
Lazy-eye swings a fist- you jack in the box- the band stops, and the gutters tink from kicked coins.
The streets strangled, cherry pint hot on your breath- you pray on a stoop, 'damn splotch of oil.'

ENVOI

The ROAD pillows your brain barefoot on the bay- Beatitudes inked in the WAVES, and in that blessed parable the lame gives all her COINS... you carefully crucifix the OIL tightrope-- and tilted mirrors gasconade. Bungee ropes below reach leather coffins filled with CHERRIES.