The Circus Woman Who Is Discussing Someone Else's Idea of Temptation

The twelve chorus starlings of whom most people have envy—
outside the pens they wait nightly for their equestrians
to stallion in like a misplaced fairy tale
and sweep them up across the soybean farms,
twained and doth. Come dawn, they're returned
to the horse trough—where I can see them, scouring manure
out from their hems before the early show,
cooing about the forest they were eased into,
the acres of pines, the underbrush of petticoats, opening—

Hence, there was I, still costumed from the spec
'til an equestrian once seized me by mistake,
hoisting up his banderole of a collard hind
as we flee-ethed—where? Where were the woods
they had sighed of. Why was there only a border
marked by stones where he—nay, I—turned back?

Copyright © 2006 Debbie Urbanski All rights reserved
from Backwards City Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission