Complete with Poodle & Pushbroom

Bring your binoculars so you can see

the balance beam act I routinely perform.

Granted, you'll have to squint until your eyes bleed.

Somewhere along the line three rings became four,

then five, then a hundred. But if you can bring yourself

to peer past the broad in the bespangled tutu

and the dude whose tights are. . .oh, my. . .,

what was I saying? Oh yes. You may get a glimpse

of my ungainly but somewhat gamely form.

Ok, I don’t have the best costume. For a clown,

I am singularly without dots. Monkey's cuter,

and that high-wire hulk has pecs and abs

make mine look like overcooked macaroni.

Ringmaster got the best jokes, what can I say?

Though as for the animal act, how hard can it be

to stand on a drum staring up at the crotch

of an elephant-training trainee? But okay,

all right, you got it. What you see is what you see.

Still say it takes cajones almost as big

as the orangutan's kid [not that I looked]

to go out in front of everyone and be me.

 

(c) Phyllis Jean Green, March 2004