The Night We Let the Animals Go

The night started out as a gift, a fable with doves blooming white and alive in the air The top of the tent open wide to enable freedom of wingspan exploded and bare Elephant troops with red sequin blankets sauntering out past the blind ticket taker Lions with whips in the grips of their teeth winking and nodding goodbye to their tamer. Streamers of silk fabric loosely attached to muscle taut beings with black painted faces Ravel, unravel like waves of bright color and swirl around children in unawkard graces Sardine car clowns crumble out of their vices to summersault brilliant and wipe the ink paint somewhere up in the tippy top of the bleachers a thick popcorn muncher stops munching to faint Horses with headdresses tasseled and gold command the attention of those young and old With a fling of their heads they are back in their coats Their unrestrained power, black-eyed and bold The ringmasters top hat is hooked by a bear the ringmaster laughs and floats into the air Grizzly parade on four legs, not just two lead by a top hatted bear with no cares In all such disclaimers, panic ensues and patrons of frumpery clamber like ants except for the boy in seat A forty two whose attention is glued like the seat of his pants The night changed the patterns of thinking of masses it recycled ideas and absolved all we know To cage bitter beauty is fraught with disaster We learned this the night we let the animals go...