POEM OF THE WEEK: Jessica Guzman Alderman

Jessica Guzman Alderman

NIGHTTIME SPECTACULAR

                                Walt Disney World Resort

As fungus juts, as earthworms purse

between grasses, orange obscures

the animatronic toucan’s rust—

head tilt, beak nip, wing stretching

fissures in a spider web

& the tangled corn dog crumb. Roped off

we wait for the parade’s first purr, fans

masking our sweat. Like algae on a river,

everything gradual we notice

at once: the service dog’s bark,

the fire flower’s silver burst & contrails

conspiring against dusk. How must

the water moccasins watch

the gorillas sleep in their makeshift

jungles, the boy splash

on the makeshift beach, the alligator

reach for his knees. The snapping

guitar marks the beat, as our sneakers

like shadow puppets

in the gift shop window swagger

with the mechanical beak.

Jessica Guzman Alderman is a Cuban-American writer from southwest Florida. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Ecotone, Copper Nickel, American Literary Review, Passages North, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere. A doctoral student at the University of Southern Mississippi, she reads for .