One-Man Circus

I refuse ever to join the circus
after so many nights
watching my father
walking his tightrope.
He deserved a place in the circus.
But the circus didn't deserve him.
He was Strongman.
I swear he thought
he could support the house.
And he was Magician,
trapped in his glass casing,
trying to escape.
And he was Ringmaster
on those rather dull, intoxicating nights,
making proclamations about what was to come
and why so many things hadn't come already.
He was master of the bluff,
but Mom and I knew his acts were the only ones
in the show.­ Father used to tell
my nervous, worried, frightened mother
she lived in fear.
Mom would say she had no choice.
And Mom and I knew she'd never
been in so much fear
as to have hidden in a bottle.

Oppenheimer

Twenty-three years from the present
I will leave my husk,
take my soul as painfully as allowed,
so as to let me know of my importance
because all important people die slow, painful deaths
to show they are recognized by one god or another.
I will make my all-too-soon exit
having defeated every mountain,
dried every body of water,
rooted any trees left by my brothers,
crushed houses of those known and unknown,
ended lives too long and not long enough,
made rulers and kings and presidents put lips
to my enormous, calloused feet,
created large, terrifying pink, blue, and gray toadstools above
wide eyes, beaded brows, wrinkled foreheads,
exposing the vitality of writers
of verse, diction, song, prophecy.
"The one who tried to conquer all,"
future liars and their media will exclaim,
"has finally been conquered!"
And I will laugh at false exclamation,
for they will make sure
my victory will be finalized.

A Dream of Cavalry

Ay! Look!
my mother’s mother!
A marble Jesus;
We stand on Golgotha.

A slight slouch of the head;
His solid, flying
form calls.
It is my turn

to die for the world.
The Earth and her creatures
refuse to die
for themselves.