1
Once you told me
To get in here
You could have jumped
The fence. I
Admired that you should choose
The Main Gate, touch
Money, exchange
Something of yours for
Something of the management’s.
(The shape of the ticket
Window reminded you
You said of the guillotine)
That was before I
Noticed the fence, the shreds
Of silk whipping like flags
On those hungry palings,
Before I knew
No matter how
You get in here
You pay for it.
2
That miracle of
Science the Half
Man Half Woman,
Divided into a garden
Of Eden where only the one who
Offers the apple eats
It, squints each eye
Because the glare
From the midway withers
Sight, levels
Each gaze as if to deliver
The freak message, “We
Know you.”
3
About growing up
The midget
Did not think
To take his time.
It was
All or
Nothing, everything
At once or
Nothing at all. He
Tried, regardless;
Appears at present one,
Exponent n, a power
Divisible by
Himself,
Capable, now
That he puts
His mind to it,
Only of redundancy.
Chief of freaks
He gets away
Like a professional
With anything, looks
Harmless, gives
Advice; sometimes
Imagines himself
Part of a royal
Personage but separated
From the whole by
Time. Regrets
Aloud his age.
One
Thing he has
Learned: to be
Content with:
The size
Of truth.
4
Ooo la la Mama
O gobadaddy hot
And so forth what
A combo! When
They get together
Like this to the tune of
Such music drives you
Out of your mind
Absolutely so what’s left
What else can you
Expect but
Twisting
Twisting?
5
Seeing the balloon man again frightens
Me. His eyes
This time are coins
(I doubt he keeps
Any change of soul
Secret from himself)
He wears a copper lock
et at his neck, crammed
With his wife’s
Picture. When he chokes
And, after some custom, raises
His arms
He seems the victim
Of a kind of hold-up, or
A slot machine raging
At a bad penny. At any rate
His eyes spin angrily,
Repeating themselves.
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