The calliope sounds like it’s trying too hard.

Breathless. Maybe a little desperate. Onlookers smile

but I’m on edge, wondering if I have ever spewed music

that was the slightest bit pretty. Today the big red puffer

gasps at the end of Main Street, the summer’s

Pickersville Flea Market/Carnival, with its exercise bikes,

baby clothes, face paint and pony rides.

One table is always stacked high with used books.

My old pal Andrew sits here in his folding chair

while his yellow dog, Mack, sprawls at his feet.

Andrew lives by himself, like me. Mack doesn’t read.

Nobody wants to be alone in this place.

I worry about things. That my performance here

might be a test of some sort, that E. coli could be napping

on this melon, that love has lost its glasses 

and will never find me and so forth. 

Any of us would swallow crushed beach glass 

for access to a reliable manual, but there isn’t one.

I’ve already conducted an intense investigation,

quite thorough, in spite of my barely controlled hysteria.

One thing I know, the carnival is of the utmost importance.

A gypsy woman with silver braids wrapped around her head,

(tight, as if to hold her soul in 

long enough to get her grandsons raised)

will read your fortune for fifty dollars

in a small shipping container behind the lemonade stand.

People go to her to find out if they’re doing it right.

“What did she mean by that?” I mumble to myself.

“What?” Andrew said. “That you are going to die?”

“No, that I’m doing the best I can. Considering.”