Pleasure Ground
There is a mangy plant I’d like to own. Still, I want it. I’m told that when it appears to rot or wither—swelled spots and smelling poorly—this is when it’s thriving. I’ve sought it out at the Pleasure Ground, but only once and unsuccessfully. I was companionless and without snack, though I often search best when peckish. It was night. My only source of light was fog caught by moon. Really, I couldn’t see a thing, but I felt the Ground about me: the sweltering air, an iron fence like a felled Ferris wheel, a buzz at my neck—maybe a bat, but I’m not sure. I traipsed across the Ground’s perimeter and—I’ll admit—I didn’t know what to look for, and—I’ll admit further— I suppose I was looking for an animal. The search and rescue were improbable for, it’s true, I even closed my eyes. The Pleasure Ground was full of death! We all know this. A decade ago, our old Earl planted rings of black tulips concentrically orbiting the Pleasure Ground’s main event (a dull and heavily oxidized statue reared on horseback), and ever since then, we chanted: death, death. My mangy plant was nowhere to be found. I heard nothing: no breath or growing. I’d pricked my hand on a sharp stone at some point during my hunt. At home, my dinner was burning. Later, I wouldn’t eat it. Later, many dear pets and lovers would go missing.
Erinrose Mager's work appears in DIAGRAM, Fence, Wigleaf, Prelude, The Adroit Journal, jubilat, and elsewhere. She is a Creative Writing and Literature PhD candidate at the University of Denver.