The Circus Between Dawn and Sunrise

1. The Barker

Step up, step forward, through the gloaming gates
into the place between: between your fear and your hope,
between life and birth,
between freedom and flight,
between death and sleep. Get your souls read,
your palms fed, get your love solved,
trap your spirit behind a wall. Don't
be afraid, little child, your blonde curls
will be safe from snarlers, jackanapes and churls.

Step right up, ladies, gentlemen, spirits and shades;
children, vampires, forests and glades.
Women, your men will be safe;
no flashing lights here, no titillation,
no irrigation of the eyes and sighs.
Men, fear not, your women will endure no attack,
there are no men with drug-laced rags lurking
in the shadows here, no slaver of any kind.
Children, you may escape your parents
into a realm of confectioner's delight.
Candy! Candy! Candy!

Step right up, all you who are weary and heavy-laden,
for the rest we give is that rest which blackens the soul,
pours it through a fiery furnace, reconstitutes it as precious gold.
Ignore the winged creatures pouring from the shadows
for they are mere lights, smoke, and mirrors.
See the magician with bats pouring from his eye sockets;
see the lady who spits an infinite stream of beer from her mouth;
see the child born with snakes instead of hair.
Ladies, gentlemen, toilers, fools and all others:
step right up and see the greatest show on earth!


2. The Bearded Lady

If you could have seen me when I was young,
oh what a pretty thing I was.
Sun dresses lit up my legs, my arms, my face
like Persephone's glowing limbs, yet was I kidnapped
and brought to this hole in the ground,
made to grow crops to attract customers,
made to shear sheep and grow their skin from my face.

Once my father told me I would be the beauty of the nations.
Ha.

Yet did I choose this hole in the ground,
for the sun when it shone on me
burned too bright, and when the faces of the gods
are turned toward me I get stage fright, I cower,
I turn away. I grew this outfit to hide from them,
I dug this hole to hide from them,
I buried myself in this earth to hide from them.

Oh, what a pretty thing I was.


3. The Magician

Step into my house,
this flimsy palace
made of canvas
which flaps in the breeze
like the winged slipper
of Mercury. Venus has nothing
on me for love, for brightness.
See how my face shines
like a lighthouse at night.

I'll make your mother disappear,
I'll make your father crumble,
I'll make the screams of your child
vanish into the night.
Do not fear me.

Step into my house, and I'll show you wonders.


4. The Lion Tamer

My hair is long like the manes of lions, mother
said. I once tied a weight into it and killed
the county sheriff with my lion-mane hair.

That's no proper thing for a little girl to do,
said my mother. So I killed her, too.

Then I had to run.

I ran and I ran, through the lands of the night,
across the surface of the sun,
and my feet burned but still I ran,
and I dissolved but still I ran,
and I was consumed but still I ran,

until I found a patch of earth no foot of man,
animal or god had ever trod. I collapsed, weeping,
until the lions came for me. They ate my lungs, my heart, my liver,
until I was nothing but a bare patch of earth
on which no foot had ever trod. All this is true,

yet also have I always been here,
with the lions, taming and trampling
their will under my small feet,
trapped, transfixed by their roars.