Circus Tricks

~

all through that Summer

questions, questions, 

were you my guardian angel

or my demon devil?

was I your Noah’s dove?

now distant memories 

mysteriously weave their way back 

through the mist, like the blind 

ferryman who reads the tides and

 navigates a route through 

the perilous reef,

memories that swirl around my legs,

like old newspaper, their

sharp words pierce my ears, 

and cling to my shoulders

as I try in vain to shrug them off,

but they cannot harm me

I have waited here too long,

secretly seething outwardly sanguine

and for the briefest moment 

you recoil, before once again

 goading me with your lion-tamer’s

 whip, before placing your lovely head

between my chastised jaws,

all around leaves fall 

a point of no return reached

from proud green

to humbled bronze.

*

© Graham R Sherwood 07/23 (rev)