| CARNIVAL

Circus Love

You’re a big top circus–everything a boy dreams
of discovering under a red tent. The most dazzling woman

I’ve ever seen in a sequin leotard on top of an elephant.
You smell like peanuts, and I love peanuts, almost as much

as your sticky cotton candy kisses. When you perform
your acrobatic feats I want to enroll in contortionist school

just so I can learn to bend like you. You’ve got a flair
for the dangerous–you swallow swords, juggle knives,

and breathe fire all while riding a unicycle. Baby, you put the pa
in panache, so much so that those Ringling Brothers have

forfeited the title greatest show on Earth to you. If I could,
I’d be the trapeze you’d swing from, the tightrope you’d walk on,

and the safety net just in case you decided to fall for me.
What I wouldn’t give to be the facial hair on your bearded lady,

your strongman’s handlebar mustache, or your human
cannonball act. You make me want to wear over-sized shoes

and pants, change my name to Bozo and dance with a grizzly
bear in a tutu if it meant I had any chance of squeezing

into your clown car heart. But you are too savage a beast
for silliness like that–a wild lioness I’d never try to tame.

Instead, I’d gently request you open your mouth just wide
enough for me to rest my brow on your pink tongue,

where I would then wait patiently for your jaws to clamp shut,
so I could finally feel what it’s like to lose my head.