Acrobats with Oranges
____________________________________

Above: canvas pulled into taffy. Below—
Smoke-white ponies, taffeta-collared bears,
Clowns and unicycles and cosmonauts
Trussed for the cannon.

My sister and I stand to one side and find
We’re children again, but better at it now.
We’ve stopped tugging at our lisle stockings,
The rub of over-starched plackets, our place
In the Pleiades of the ring. We don’t fidget.
We don’t forget our names when the spots
Come up, bathing us blind.

We’re given the same stakes nightly:
Six ripe oranges and gravity’s carousel. We’re given
Our dainty feet in Mary Janes, our manicured
Hands. We’re given beauty we can block and closet
After hours, preserving its use.

At show time, we’re something to see.
Our faces bud and blur behind quickened
Cargo. You might think sleight of hand
But it’s closer to skywriting what we do. We spell a wheel,
An egg, a climbing compass. We spell the world
And it spells back everything it knows.

Above, the tightrope flosses forever. Below,
The lion tamer’s grand mustache. Above,
Star-fizzle, startled moths, the asteroids of other lives
Careening. Below, air struck and plumbed,
Obvious with oranges.

From Stumble, Gorgeous by Paula McLain

New Issues Poetry & Prose, Western Michigan University, Dept. of English,
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331

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