Malak Mattar, Untitled (detail), 2024, charcoal on paper
The Cyclone
I don’t understand you the way I don’t understand
roller coasters, why people lock themselves
into rickety ridesto be reminded—repeatedly—
they are going to dielittle deaths—
The personality book asked me what
I felt when I imagined riding a rollercoaster. Dread, I thought.
The next page said the rollercoaster represents sex.
I feltthe dip in my stomach
I knew before I knew
roller coasters and wanted to tell the book about my roaring
twenties,how I went bravely over the clattering tracks, locked in,
white knuckledscreamingrounding the same corners
to feel I was aliveand sex mine to ride
how much of our bodies are waterthe nerves,
a net of Christmas lights thrown over us
On Coney Island, the screams of the Cyclone riders
whip around like streamers—I want to point them out to you, ask if you recognize them or
if there is a girl up there
in a striped shirt, her head back, eyes closed,
laughing her head off—
KC Trommer (she/her) is the author of We Call Them Beautiful (Diode Editions, 2019) and The Hasp Tongue (dgp, 2014). In 2018, she founded QUEENSBOUND, an ongoing public poetry series on the 7 train. Since 2018, KC has collaborated with the Grammy Award-winning composer Herschel Garfein on a song cycle based on poems from her first collection, three of which were included in Garfein’s 2023 classical music release The Layers. She holds a BA in English from the University of Georgia and an MFA in Poetry from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program. She lives in Jackson Heights, Queens, with her son. More at kctrommer.com. (updated 05/2025)