Michele Seabrook: “after the movie”

there is nothing negative to say about falling back in love on a ferris wheel, above the neon shirt clad carnies dragging on their smokes,

the ticket booth reeking of fruity booze.

the pop country maxes out the speakers,

a fuzzy edge creeping into its produced perfection.

the EMERGENCY sign is glowing in the distance.

this night makes that night, only months ago,

(the helplessness, the waiting, your voice thick under layers of anesthesia)

seem like the distant past in a landscape below me.

the lights, i know where they come from, where they are going,

what this field will return to.

i know where we are all going,

but it doesn’t burn like usual up here.

Michele Seabrook is a senior at Gettysburg College hoping to earn her MFA in creative writing. She is much younger than she feels.