Most of the fairgoers observed the comely woman
robed like a statue in layers of gossamer cloth
fair hair plaited and piled. She strode down the midway
past lights that flashed and jangled, music tangled
and tuneless. She paused to stare at the Ferris wheel
arcing like a rainbow, tracked the buckets
bobbing against dark sky. Then felt a tug
near her knee, looked down to see a toddler
reaching up, fists sticky with webs of pink.
She picked her up and moved along, long
strides steady on dusty earth. Surely a few
noticed the sheaves and stalks embroidered in silk
on her gown, guessed her a part of the pageantry
no doubt. In the Ag Exhibit Hall she bowed
before the enormous Butter Cow until
the restless child complained. Pictures of corn
wheat, and beans, but no plants? Powders and sprays
chemists in coats. What would Triptolemus say?
Offered gifts of soda, deep-fried Snickers
they ate, baby wiping gooey fingers
in her hair. Amidst the livestock she took her ease
released the child who shrieked at thousand pound
pigs, angora bunnies, their tricky pink eyes.
After blasts of fireworks styled a la Zeus
in the stable housing Clydesdales, behind piles
of hay they slept. And early in the morning
Demeter rose and kissed the child, then left.
Marianne Taylor is a bookseller at Powell’s on Burnside where she manages the sales floor in the Blue, Gold, and Green rooms. In a previous life she taught literature and creative writing at a Midwestern college, and her poetry has been published widely in national journals and anthologies. She once served as Poet Laureate of her former small town, but for the past three years she’s been trying to find her way around Portland.