Human Cannonball

Five customers----five showsides----all up and becoming

while the waitress drifts away behind the café

countertop and into a dark roast void where she counts tips

and compliments paid in her three ring circus.

She's a wet match juggled by safety pins, no spark of

hope, like a tightwalk roper with a different

pair of shoes for every clumsy trip down the razor wire.

A sword tamer and lion swallower at once

where no whips crack though she bleeds on every blade but

the one she wields, limp as Freudian slips. She's

never tasted fire, but she's choked up Sawdust & Tinsel

long enough to know a canon humanball's the only

one with enough guts to launch out as far as he can once the

wick turns ash. Strike the match, the ringmaster

of her mind calls out, for a chance at the Big Top! So she

doffs her apron and chains, stares that void into

a thousand tiny eyes that stare back in her Hall of Mirrors

makes new sense of all the acts she'd comprised----

Snapped tightrope, plastic sword candy, spade alley cat,

safety pins holding together a habiliment of finespun

mettle. She parts the brown caffeinated seas of customers

buried beneath words and the wisdom of others

and smiles knowing now that the Yellow Brick Road is

really paved with gold----if you will it so----and

holds up those who leave the clowns and jokers behind, uphold

the timeless light of dream stars, still afire. Still within. '