Max Reif - Circus Visions

A young woman balances
<i>en pointe</i> on one foot
atop a man’s head.
Then gracefully, she
turns a full circle.

A little later, a torch, lighted at both ends,
flies onto the stage from the wing,
A man catches it
and proceeds to make
<i>flame</i> his tango partner.

A keystone cop fire brigade comes out.
They use their hoses as long jump ropes
before getting completely tangled up in them.

Meanwhile, an S & M policewoman
at the front of the stage
rotates a girl’s jump-rope
‘round her body faster
than my amazed eye can follow.

Whole groups dive through hoops,
toss silver pins at rapid fire.
By the finale,
the quickest way
between two points
is not walking,
but a full-body flip.

We in the audience see a world
whose laws seem not to be our laws.
Such miracles do surgery to our eyes,
removing cobwebs of unconscious life.

We see a Dali world, full-blown upon the stage—
never the years of arduous labor
that brought that world to birth.

Max Reif

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/circus-visions/