~ le cirque ~

Again, the disappearing girl. I wanted to be

the aerialist (in this circus) false wings,

silk and rope to bind my hands – for I am not

afraid of heights, just of falling – the forced

letting go, inevitable smack of earth

against bone – too much to bear. Absence

is easier – a negative spectacle. Curtain rises on nothing

to much applause – slipping

away, growing quiet, and suddenly

gone unnoticed (“don’t remember her

leaving”). My real gift for wearing well

the architecture – the splinter surface of redwood panels,

the transparency of windows

like a form-fitted dress – or the music – in an hour

of calliope, one song is any other. Of course, it’s just

a trick, sleight of body, small

is not invisible, and sometimes I have help – strangers’

quick passing glances, mutually unnamed – or

a friend’s eyes skirting mine to avoid the grasp

of recognition, measuring distance, finding, it

oceans us in silence, too far. But most evenings (more than

a few) I disappear on my own, into shadows carried

everywhere folded in scarves, through trap

doorways built of sentences trailed off, scrap

language framing escape into other tongues (talk,

cheers, cries) out of other hands, holding

the rope, muscles shaking, feathers sway.