A Small Matter
.
The summer I turn sixteen, Jolly-Boy has a breakdown:
so sad – the kindest and least scary of all the clowns.
.
The Ring Master replaces him
with a talkative Welshman called Leon,
who throws knives in rhythm with 1950s jive.
.
Under scornful starlight, he tells me I’m Special
and licks already wet lips. A bouquet of blades flourish
from one hand, a signed photo – of himself – from the other.
.
I’ve no clue who he is.
.
Backstage he eyes my built-up boot – thinks me
oblivious. My spine tenses as his breath matches
the uneven roll of my hips at each step.
.
He’ll take me on as his wife, he promises
The Ring Master – a deal done behind red curtains,
used notes and gentlemen’s agreements. Unlucky
.
he has to part ways with the troupe
halfway across Norfolk. I’m not allowed
.
to throw knives after that. Even so, a man can function
with only one ear, and a missing testicle is a small matter.
.
Bio: Holly Magill’s poetry has appeared in numerous magazines, including The Interpreter’s House and Bare Fiction, and anthologies –Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press) and #MeToo: A Women’s Poetry Anthology (Fair Acre Press). She co-edits Atrium – www.atriumpoetry.com. Her debut pamphlet, The Becoming of Lady Flambé, is a fictional sequence, following a young woman’s coming of age in a fading contemporary circus, and is available from Indigo Dreams Publishing.
