Many laugh and many sing.
Many mouths sit agape with a cheek-to-cheek grin.
Fire swirls in the air as the acrobats swing—
Elephants weep, extravagently, with a tusk-to-tusk grin.
Amidst the cages, monkeys sit,
Faces pressed against the bars,
Rubbing their *******, dreaming of the trees
From which they would swing.
The freaks and the clowns sit amidst lurid lights—
Applying their faces with a cheek-to-cheek grin—
Constructing their masks, aided by the conjure of the magicians,
Those who draw salt from the air and harbour apparitions.
On stage now: Rotondo, the clown.
He dances, naked, with an ear-to-ear grin,
Rubbing his *******-belly, penetrating the mind of the Big-top ring,
Shrouded by the coiling laughter of an audience who yearn for the lights of deformed suffocation as Rotondo, the clown, paints a new face and ushers in a parade of freaks and deformed grins.