This Year I Take Your Place (Revision 1c)

[danny_]

Revision 1c (Thank you Knot, Todd, Richard)
[Killed the first line altogether from 1b, the title is enough. Still open to feedback on clarity of overall image, but I'm quite happy with it.]

This Year I Take Your Place

You were standing at the edge
of this same shadow.

All the neon stripes and dots
of the merry-go-round
stained your white shirt.

A hundred screams thrilled the night -
all those young loves
tipping over the side of the world,
hands held tightly,

but you had stepped away,
fence-leaning,
staring through woods outside the grounds.

Was there a moment of distraction,
clank and hiss of failing swings?
And then where you had been,
only empty light.

- Let me know what you understand the poem to be about, or let me know if you don't understand: 
- I have the feeling it may lack some quality, that it is dry. Blast away - I'm fine with all crit, just promise not to rush your reply.
- What could make this more emotionally impacting if indeed it's weak? Tell me what's missing.
Thank you for reading.

This year I take your place


Spinning lights, every color a-play upon their faces.
Last year at this time you were standing
at the edge of this same shadow in the moonlight.
All the neon stripes and dots
of the merry-go-round stained your white shirt.

Into whispering, chilled woods you stared.

A hundred screams penetrated
the night sky--all those young loves
falling off the edge of the world,
their hands held tightly.

But you were here, alone.
Could I have comforted you?

I hunger to know what it was
that made you disappear.
A moment of distraction-
the clank and hiss of the failing swings-
and only naked light remained
on the cobble where you had been.

Hurried, darting glances,
with that feeling that something
had been stolen from me.
All the effort only revealed
stranger after stranger.

I take your place this year.
Not knowing if you were or
were not the one the news reporter
stapled into the public's mind
with not half the sorrow in his face as mine-
who jumped from a bridge just outside
these gates of cheer.

Now I hold this fence you held.

And I see those trees you saw.

And I am sure that we could have been
much closer.