The Trapeze Artist....
Here's a poem I wrote recently...
The Trapeze Artist
Part One
She had only fallen once-
The muggy air lingering at the top of the tent,
The over friendly grasp of June
had made her limbs moist,
slippery and sleek
like the shimmering bellies of seal pups.
Her partner was a novice,
a childhood of gymnastics on over-grown lawns
could never prepare him for the sensation of flight.
Her ankles slipped right through his hands
As she fell
she smiled
and flapped her arms
a featherless bird in a lonely plummet.
The sequins of her outfit,
her glossy hair and white teeth
glistened in the spotlight.
The only sound was
the collective murmur of beating hearts and
The crack of her tibia
echoing through the hollow tent.
For the three months it took her leg to heal
The trapeze artists dreamt of flight.
But her young partner never climbed the latter to the swings again
he woke up with sweat soaked sheets
clinging to trembling limbs
the image of her shimmering skin, her fluttering arms
that solid crack of bone
was all too much for him
He left the circus and joined the military
where he died watching explosions of fire
and he thought of the shimmer of sequins
he thought of the quickness it takes to descend to the ground.
Part Two
An Autumn night after her act
she drank tea behind the tent
listening to the muffled sounds of the rest of the show
the rumble of the lions
the audiences synchronized cringe at the sword swallowing man
the roar of the final applause.
as the audience flowed from the tent
her attention split between watching them
and watching the clouds move across the moon
thinking how they seemed to be moving together
an an old man broke away from the flow
and walked toward the trapeze artist
He stopped in front of her,
stooping on a wooden cane
his voice quivered in his throat
a gentle rasp, he said
"In your past life you were a bird,
I remember watching you long ago
flying with the clouds."
The trapeze artists smiled
imagining birds
swooping and soaring through open skies.
But she knew the old man was wrong
in her past life she was
no less than the wind itself.
The Trapeze Artist
Part One
She had only fallen once-
The muggy air lingering at the top of the tent,
The over friendly grasp of June
had made her limbs moist,
slippery and sleek
like the shimmering bellies of seal pups.
Her partner was a novice,
a childhood of gymnastics on over-grown lawns
could never prepare him for the sensation of flight.
Her ankles slipped right through his hands
As she fell
she smiled
and flapped her arms
a featherless bird in a lonely plummet.
The sequins of her outfit,
her glossy hair and white teeth
glistened in the spotlight.
The only sound was
the collective murmur of beating hearts and
The crack of her tibia
echoing through the hollow tent.
For the three months it took her leg to heal
The trapeze artists dreamt of flight.
But her young partner never climbed the latter to the swings again
he woke up with sweat soaked sheets
clinging to trembling limbs
the image of her shimmering skin, her fluttering arms
that solid crack of bone
was all too much for him
He left the circus and joined the military
where he died watching explosions of fire
and he thought of the shimmer of sequins
he thought of the quickness it takes to descend to the ground.
Part Two
An Autumn night after her act
she drank tea behind the tent
listening to the muffled sounds of the rest of the show
the rumble of the lions
the audiences synchronized cringe at the sword swallowing man
the roar of the final applause.
as the audience flowed from the tent
her attention split between watching them
and watching the clouds move across the moon
thinking how they seemed to be moving together
an an old man broke away from the flow
and walked toward the trapeze artist
He stopped in front of her,
stooping on a wooden cane
his voice quivered in his throat
a gentle rasp, he said
"In your past life you were a bird,
I remember watching you long ago
flying with the clouds."
The trapeze artists smiled
imagining birds
swooping and soaring through open skies.
But she knew the old man was wrong
in her past life she was
no less than the wind itself.