Trick Pony

you look so pitiable
nursing that one trick pony,
his snapped legs
  shaking
perspiring
    and pink

how dissappointing

what a narrow
escape

a blindfolded
Nazi cartwheel
through a gold hoop dipped
in asbestos and glitter

how admirable

now that he's frightened
will you whisper to him?
teach him another trick?
teach him to lay his coat
over the trenches
so the queen
won't get her diamonds dirty?

what can you teach him?
nothing? 

so get a replacement

    look at this one -
he's already fluent in french;
a goddamn rocket scientist.
he could make a molotav cocktail
out of crackerjacks
                and buffalo nickels

and he hosts séances

he casts a silver rod into the pits of hell
  and drags up
movie stars
        and misplaced intellectuals
so poetic spectators
can ask essential questions
and try on their metaphors like new shoes

pivoting
this way
and that way
in front of a leaning mirror

"I'm crazy about this red pair
but I haven't got a dress to match.
      What about these black ones? They're alligator.
                                                        I'm crazy about alligator. Everyone likes alligator."

true preference is terrifying.

when you crawl back
into your plush shell
and find your very own doppelgänger
shoveling your shoes into the oven,
boiling your goldfish
and emptying the contents of your medicine cabinet
into a hell-fire handbag,
don't say i didn't warn you.

but
look!

look how your new pony gleams
under the heat of observation;
look at the explosion
of needy eyes
waiting to devour him.

so seemingly indestructable
so appropriately self-loathing

these new tricks are worse than the last