You are not the nightmare of my choosing:
your fits of fisticuffs have bruised me,
your feats of horsemanship exhaust me
when you gain entrance and trip my conscience,
stalking stilt-walker, muzzled mummer, motley-eyed

lunatic. When you white-out your sockets,
slap on your blood-corked nose, steal flaming hoops
to light your bonfire hair, I spy trouble;
when you outwit my simple beasts,
mock their double jugular and lumbering gait.

Smile muscles tight as ukulele strings.
Lungs two balloons filled with fright.
I’d rather slip and plummet from the top,
admit the courtyard’s jeers, jangle lion-tamer’s keys
than spend a night of drollery with you.

(First published in Not One of Us, Issue 59, 2018.)