Space Circus Poem
I’m buzzing on caffeine, and exhausted with heat and humidity and biking back and forth across town. And yet! I’m going to give you a little taste of the poem I finished writing today for the CONvergence space lounge cabaret in a little over a week, which is circus-themed this year. I’m 99% positive that it will end up in my “Army of Nursery Rhymes” chapbook in late summer/early fall, so you only get a taste, unless we get video at CON. This is the first draft, and just the first little bit of the poem.
5am looks like cotton candy in the sky
And clean little fingers LOVE cotton candy.
So it is into the sky, baby girl,
tug your big brother’s hand
out into the backyard and to his science project
his sleepy eyes ask you what is it
but you are four years old and have not uttered a word yet.
He is seven, and he can do anything.
He is seven, and if he can’t pull down the spun sugar sky for you
he will take you there.
Point with pudgy pink fingers, at the swirls of blue and pink,
at the hammered aluminum tower he has been working on all spring.
He is seven, and he will lift you into a metal carapace
tuck you in with your baby blanket
little sardine, going back to bed.
He is seven, and very tall- climbs in next to you
with scuffed up legs and grass-stained sneakers.
His long dirty fingers pull a lever,
and the whole. thing. starts shaking.
-Cole
*must not miss the cabaret this year.