Photo by David Traña on Unsplash
Six Flags trips are for funnel cake,
but Sam loves to ride the tallest coaster
in Texas, wants to see what the cirrus
look like up close—tiny vapor
under microscope. She screams
in laughter, menace minus self-
doubt, small frame whipped & thrown
like a child’s toy but once the train car
slows to its finish, she’s itching again.
What else can she survive?
My feet beg for soil, long to dig toes
into cool dirt, pray to the gravity that pins
me to the surface. I call it grounding.
But those clouds. Wrench
my neck to get a better look—
How do cumulus taste?
Are stratus like cotton candy, nimbus
like watermelon? I need to know
if the sunset turns them sour, sweet,
more umami? I try to will myself braver.
Grip the bar that holds me in place,
barely can keep my eyes open—I just hold on.
Sarah Karowski (she/her) recently finished her MFA at the Mississippi University for Women. Her work has been in Prospectus: A Literary Offering and Mad Swirl among others, as well as in anthologies with Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Moonstone Arts Center, and is forthcoming in anthologies with Five South and Prickly Pear Press. Sarah is also the social media advisor for Thimble Literary Magazine.