Child, you seem neither princess nor lady,
governess nor maid. Fine black bonnet blooms
bourgeoisie over velvet pagoda
sleeves thanks to a bootstrapping patriarch,
his picture bride dreams. Plaid bow enormous
beneath your pale clamshell chin presents you:
white flowers, ebony curls, tender lips.

We lift our hats to you
Casual daredevils of iron defiance
We have nothing to fear but
Fear of falling.

Dr. Bernhard’s Traveling Menagerie had a real problem. All the clowns had killed each other in an argument over whose rubber chicken was the biggest. It was a tragedy, and it could not have come at a worst time.

The young maple tree on the corner
undressed in mid-September
at fall’s first freeze,
so eager to perform,
and now it stands knock-kneed
and bare, a gray spine
in a pool of perfect red and white leaves,
mute like Zechariah
burning with Elizabeth’s story,
or like a lone banjo player on stage
chasing the haunting notes
of an unsung lyric.

Here I am,
tricked by a September anomaly
into a premature abscission,
a skinny coat rack, now,
with no privacy for fall’s
remaining wrens.