Circuses Go Round and Round

On days when the girls were circuses
their mother would parade them in the 
dusky living room where the overhead spots
would highlight each one in their own 
three ring aura, The Entrance of the Gladiators 
stuck on repeat on the old phonograph, 
brass and woodwinds bouncing lithely 
off their bodies and trumpeting off the walls,
the humid Florida air swirling around the 
ceiling fan- a  cotton candy glaze under a 
spun glass moon.  

In their tutus they imagined doing 
plies and arabesques on the backs 
of circling white stallions, their 
mother choreographing their movement
with clapping hands, low murmurings 
to throw their bodies back, keep 
their spines a straight line, urging them 
to spring back up after each fall- “fly,
fly, fly, my darlings, you must fly!”

Again, again they fell, got back up,  
flew even after their father 
kicked them and their mother  
enough into the air that they hit the 
earth hard, enough to feel the forever 
rising bruise of death tug them up
like a balloon tied to  their wrists, 
tossed them out into the dirty circle
under the jaundice streetlights
because they dared to dream 
things beyond his empty knowing.

They got back up and flew away, far 
away enough to forget his name—
far away enough until their hearts almost 
stopped breaking, not stopping until  they 
reached California, until  one  distant day 
to come, in a green hospital room, they  
danced  around  their mother once  again.