Gary Glauber

Sideshow

Even though I know they’re

safely contained in cages,

the lions’ roars are unnerving.

I read the number she wrote

on the cocktail napkin, follow

carefully to its real life component,

find a wayward corner of a

rundown double wide

parked in some dimly lit

back lot far from the strip’s

bright lights and fast judgments. 

If I waited til morning, she’d be gone.

“We’re a traveling entertainment,”

she offered, sweet byproduct

of healing trapeze imbalances

and loud-talking hucksters. 

She was my snake oil,

cure-all for particular brand

of lonesome hurting, one

that required limber flexibility

and an unwavering belief

in the power of self-delusion.

In the buzzing of those

failing fluorescents, I could

hear convincing siren’s song.

Her kisses came hard and fast,

and I succumbed to the illusion,

sloping, groping, and hoping

right up to when her clown father

burst in from his own private

makeup lesson, and pointed

that T-shirt cannon at my head.

I grabbed what clothes I could

and shot myself out the door.

With neon memories setting

brain aflame like briquettes,

I got dressed in sad shadows

of an abandoned warehouse

to preserve the pity I might need

to someday forgive myself

for this ongoing sin

of eternal desperation.

Gary Glauber is a widely published poet, fiction writer, teacher, and former music journalist. He champions the underdog, and strives to survive modern life’s absurdities. He has two collections, Small Consolations (Aldrich Press) and Worth the Candle (Five Oaks Press), and a chapbook, Memory Marries Desire (Finishing Line Press).  A new chapbook of surreal poetry, The Covalence of Equanimity, a winner of the 2019 James Tate International Poetry Prize, is now available from SurVision Books.