I want to run away
with the circus
but I have no skills:
I am not agile enough
to swing from a trapeze,
too clumsy to juggle,
afraid of lions,
too old to dance half naked
between the numbers –
but perhaps I am sad
enough to be a clown.
I can be a sad clown
in a derelict small town circus
where feet have worn dusty paths
between tattered tents.
It sounds depressing,
but at least it is different
from being a respectable
middle aged wife with a house
and two kids who are grown
and have made mothering obsolete,
and a job I am so good at,
I can fake it while my mind
is already off with the caravan.
is different
from the loneliness
of the traveler.
Manicured lawns front
white houses.
Safely walled away,
in tiled kitchens
and living rooms
with leather couches
and well vacuumed carpets,
warm, dry, fed,
the withering souls
wait.
She opens the first bottle
at two in the afternoon
to drown the monotony
that numbs her mind.
The dramas
play quietly
behind the curtains.
Agnes Vojta grew up in Germany, spent a few years in California, Oregon, and England, and now lives in Rolla where she teaches physics at Missouri S&T. She is the author of Porous Land (Spartan Press, 2019). Her poems recently appeared in As It Ought To Be Magazine, Former People, Gasconade Review, Thimble Literary Magazine, Trailer Park Quarterly, and elsewhere.