The Act
Summer began with a bike,
its frame painted red,
one thin wheel.
The focus was balance,
hours of clinging to walls and doors;
fences and fingertips, pigtails and ears.
It became about a clown;
greasepaint mouth sadways
striped dungarees, floppy bowtie,
hair a woollen orange.
I rose an act
balancing on my one-wheeler.
rolled across the stage,
arms outstretched; head strained forward
a hunting buzzard, eyes ringed with white.
I listened to a rippling about the marquee,
the sound of a Circus crowd,
laughing at the unicycling clown
laughing at me.
Anna Chorlton‘s poems have been published in Atlanta Review (spring,2020) Wild Court (winter, 2021) The Dawntreader (winter and spring, 2021). She is author of Cornish Folk Tales of Place, The History Press, (2019). www.annachorlton.com @anna_chorlton