In 1943
when I was a kid of exactly six
my aunts took my sister and me and
my silly-because-I’m-on-a-holiday
mother to the amusement park
at Ocean City New Jersey USA.

Whatever we did
cotton candy and salt water toffee
and a lot of walking and watching
I do remember the house of mirrors
and the clanking rippling tunnel of love
which was tame enough for us.

I remember that clicking clanking
as the chains or whatever pulled us
along the dark ominous water way
a judicious distance from the other
passenger carrying swans. I wondered
if they were the birds that brought babies
but my aunts told me storks were different.

Yesterday, the wife and I
took the car over to the auto
car wash and I was reminded
by the clicking clanking track
that hauled us into the maze of
spinning spraying monster brushes
of the tunnel of love and how scared
our little guy was when we used to
take him with us through the auto car wash
and now, come to think of it
there was a certain aggressive
claustrophobia about being closed in
and assaulted by giant monster brushes
vomiting porridge all over the car.

Even though I was with my sweetie
that was no tunnel of love.