Roller Coaster

Roller Coaster

Roller coasters rise from the earth
like the loops of tied shoelaces.
Spindly pillar and wooden plank--
theirs is an architecture of feigned
instability. We make a game of
climbing and falling, of expectation,
if only to shriek and briefly touch
the coarse edge of terror, and then
to let it withdraw, subsiding with a rattle.