The coin-operated horse
out front of K-mart
had no idea
merry-go-rounds existed.
Or traveling carnivals,
for that matter.
Brian Beatty is the author of five poetry collections and a spoken word album. Beatty’s poems and stories have appeared in Appalachian Journal, Cowboy Jamboree, CutBank, Dark Mountain, Evergreen Review, Floyd County Moonshine, Gulf Coast, McSweeney’s, The Missouri Review, The Moth, The Quarterly, Rattle, Seventeen and The Southern Review.