Outside the Happiest Place on Earth
Everything was going fine
up until the age of 3 or 4
We were at the gates
of the recently opened Disneyland
I was perched upon a rail
waiting for us to get in
while being tortured by my cousin
who was a good ten years older
and would spend most of his life
in some kind of uniform—
scouts, army, MP, cop—
and would someday succumb
to alcoholism
another addiction
of uniformity
Mostly he was content to pick on his brother
but today was my turn
and somehow or other
i tumbled from the railing
hit the pavement like Humpty Dumpty
and next i knew
had an iceberg bandaged to my head
It’s a small small world
was piped in from somewhere
and i realized i was not going to visit the
Matterhorn or Pirates of the Carribean
or Peter Pan Land
The bump was as big
as what Bugs might leave on Yosemite Sam
members of that other cartoon dynasty
in a land far away
another stop on the fantasy cavalcade
i would not see until too late
—Larry Crist