from The Ghost-Star King

I OEDIPUS sweltered on a Hersheypark bench in late July, parched, pink with skin-fire, heat index 109˚F and climbing, the rush like a nightmare stampede of ghosts, there in the air impossible to touch, a thousand thousand squeals, whoosh-clink of coasters, crinkly bags and slurps of passersby, tears, somewhere tears, flip-flops splatting as a faded sundress ran. America in summer is a pyre scream too shrill to pity, which dad is yours, which gnarled and hairy hand, each back an oval darkening between love handles. Wiggly queues snaked with children suddenly taller, some on toe-tips, you must be this tall to feel your life flail like a cat-o’-nine-tails. Restless, I retreated to the arcade’s soft whir, shivering as I dripped beneath a corner vent, and let the chiaroscuro din wash over me, a poor whore’s dream of luck. When I caught my breath, I pumped my tokens in like all the rest, Skee-Ball, claw games, plastic motorcycles tilting on their pedestals, blasting zombies with an orange shotgun tethered by a chain. Click-clack, it chirped, when I reloaded, shooting at the floor before I misted brains of those who came to eat my brain. When my pockets no longer sang with coins, I wandered, slurping straws of orphaned cups weeping as they warmed. America, I found your pythia at last, she takes $1s and $5s, always a line feeding her green, she breaks them, each dollar she shatters into jangles, a fistful of suns.

Read more from Issue 20.2.