The Adventures of the Polka Dot Girls--By Marianne Szlyk--United States

The Adventures of the Polka Dot Girls

Last evening at the carnival next door,
the polka dot girls were running,
shrieking,
waving
cotton candy
and pink balloons
on their way to all the rides
that they were much too old for.

This morning, the polka dot girls dance,
long, white skirts swishing.
They are waiting for the van to church,
singing hymns in Amharic,
their language,
the one that looks like
a secret code for Nancy Drew.

On their way home
past the sleeping carnival,
the girls will still be
singing.

Marianne Szlyk recently published her first chapbook, Listening to Electric Cambodia, Looking Up at Trees of Heaven, at Kind of a Hurricane Press: http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2014/10/listening-to-electric-cambodia-looking.html. Her poem "Walking Past Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Winter" was nominated for the 2014 Best of the Net. Her poems have appeared in print and online, most recently in Poppy Road Review, bird's thumb, Black Poppy Review, Of/with, Walking is Still Honest, and Literature Today as well as Kind of a Hurricane's anthologies. She edits a poetry blog-zine at http://thesongis.blogspot.com/ and hopes that you will consider submitting a poem there or voting in one of its contests.