In the circus of my mind, the soft
sawdust bears the scuffs marks
of activity, from where the bear
stood tall on the small podium, as
ring master bidden the leather whip
whistled near its twitching ears and
white horses trotted in tightly formed
circles, lightly clad women stood bare
backed on their wide hind quarters,
balanced it seemed, held on with an
impression of invisible reins, clown
magicians with Goofy booted feet made
magic that was too quick to be seen,
my mind full of action that never ceased
nor can be explained in rational ways,
always the next act in what my aunts
who took me on these wild excursions
called widdershins, and I still cannot
remove from my mind’s eye the sight
of the trapeze artist missing her
partner’s hand, the crowd’s oohs and
aahs as her body tore through the safety
net, as heavily as a misplaced thought is
manifest in words thrown into the public
domain where their reception is as
deafening as a body hitting saw dust
from a great height, no way of doing it
all again as a reverse replay, pretending
it never happened, blood on sawdust is
not so easily swept away by smiling
clowns with big noses red spotted shirts
playing illusory charades that frightened
us who were wide-eyed sponge soaking
innocents, playing with our first experience
of fear beyond imagination, something like
mouths washed with soap for rude word
utterances imprints the words forever, the
smell of horse dung mixed with sawdust in
my daughter’s stables hauls in the same
old memories, cantering back with muffled,
unwelcome, unexpected hoof-beats.