Ramshackle Review

LOVE AND HOW IT GETS THAT WAY

by Bill Yarrow

You were the most beautiful girl in third grade. 

My thoughts were restless escapades. My heart 

was roasted butter. I donned wax wings and flew

toward the highest sky I could find. And then, 

among a score of others, to be invited to your party!

We all stood on the lawn behind your house, most 

of us in wide-striped tees, one of us in a bowtie, 

eyeing that thing in your backyard, that thing 

you pumped to spin around, and we all took turns,

you on one side in a yellow dress and one after 

the other of us on the other, and we spun you,  

spun you! and then that kid in the bowtie got on, got

dizzy, and vomited, and you looked at him with disgust,

and I felt like an apple had just landed in my lap. 

Bill Yarrow is the author of WRENCH (erbacce-press, 2009) and Wound Jewelry (new aesthetic, 2010). His poems have recently appeared in BLIP, PANK, Poetry International, DIAGRAM, Ramshackle Review, LITSNACK, Blue Fifth Review, this, Used Furniture Review, and Everyday Genius. He lives in Illinois.