come one, come all.

Lurid black beckons you back.

Slack jaws saw that woman in half
as they laugh.
The crowd gathers,
slathers,
in fact,
I know from the way her bones show
that I’d rather be Zak.

Sure we stack the facts in the backs of our heads,
but eyes rise from pages to take the stage instead.

For example,
ample chins, no slim in her sample,
she grins as the crowd tramples
dirt,
when the loudspeaker leaks
the secret beneath her skirt.
Bearded-lady,
shady like five-o-clock,
keeps her dress hiked
and eyes locked.

Everyone needs someone
to mock.

Lizard Boy toys with his pet chicken,
pickin’
feathers from its back
he pretends its his son,
and as a bothered father,
he makes a wish on each one:

“I wish you wealth,
“I wish you’d meet a nice girl.
“I wish you good health.
“I wish you the world.”

His own father had told him similar things,
until he sold him for salt, salmon and shoestrings.
Now he’s harnessed by the carnival,
and its all the rage
to watch the pale, scaly child
pluck poultry in his cage.

The dwarf is short.
That’s his job.
Once, to support
his opium habit
he’d murder, mug and rob
people much taller.

(The harder they fall,
money and all.
He, small, would grab it
and attack every dollar.)

Now he just sits and drinks and stinks
of vomit and shit and sausage links
covered in spit. Spectators think
that, for him, that’s it. A dwarf can’t reach sinks.

The Freak Show glows.
The creepy people
creep
in
in
droves.
At ten o’ clock they stop.
The curtains close,
and poetry’s nightmares scare prose.

So I’ll see you there.
Wear your nice clothes,
so when the place strips you bare,
we can stare at those.