IX. The Trapeze Artist
And then we chose to dare. We dared ourselves to lose
Each other in the air. Every time on the trapeze
Upside down, my knees gripping the bar, I closed
My eyes. My head dizzy trusted my hands to please
Find yours ready and waiting to catch me clean,
So I, we, would not displace the crowd
That was us, our hands, our serpentine
Swinging in the air, defying all the loud
Beloved awe that we heard from the faces daunted
Below. We were still the Flying Wallendas after
All, after all our daredeviled haunting
Acrobatics above. No one knew this better
Than us. We trained ourselves to fly uncertainly
Through the air, to fall without fear of exquisite pain.
X. The Human Cannonball
To fall through the air without fear of exquisite pain.
To make myself the illusion of round as I split
The molecules of light and air. Without explaining
I become more circular each flight. I uplift
Everyone’s eyes until they can see no more
Than I believe resides in this anomaly
That the Ringlings call my cast-iron body. I am encore
Before I am shot into the crowd’s terrified glee.
Where I land, no one owns, and this makes me
More like the fire that will take the love
Out of what I do, forever extinguish my destiny
To go on with the show. I become glove
To most of the air. I become a wicked bard.
And as for the whip of air I create? I crack it hard.
XI. The Lion Tamer
And as for the whip in air I create? I crack it hard
With a dramatic flick of my wrist and a flair,
And this is mostly for show like the charred
Matchstick (that I presume set the circus air
On fire) remains separated from its once burning
Flame. Who tames whom in this pair
Is the more insightful answer to earn in this ruin,
This riddle. One is lion, yes, and one is roar.
No. One is flammable, the other is not. We are
Two sides of the same coin the carney flips
To draw you in to his trickery. Heads or tails, I dare
You to believe it matters which. The lion’s lips
Or mine kissing your upturned mouth — either will
provoke the utmost combustible, charming thrill.
XII. The Fat Lady
So I provoke the utmost combustible, charming thrill
With my rolls of skin, my Cheshire cat grin.
I draw you in with pound after pound of flesh grilled
By sun, soon by flame. Still I will beat the odds, win
Over the fire. I am a credit to my sex — every woman
Wants to be like me in the dark — larger than life,
Bearing all her teeth, her heirs, her cherished children,
For one night only when she becomes more than wife,
Sister, mother. For when she becomes rich with fat
There is nothing that can stop her from devouring
Every lover in her widest berth. The bed holds every spat
She’s held with her beloved’s night sweats and scars.
And so, what woman doesn’t want also to be
With me? To unburden her buried pleasures,
Her flaming hips warming my voluminous v,
Her fierce lips finding their way to my assuring
Nipples fattening inside her mouth until I am nothing
To her, and she becomes nothing more than everything.
“The Circus Fire Corona, 1944/2024, IX-XII” takes its inspiration from one of the deadliest fires in US history, the Hartford Circus Fire. The fire began just minutes into the matinee of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus on July 6, 1944, in Hartford, Connecticut. My father, then eight, survived this fire that claimed 167 lives with over 700 injured.