To the punters' delight
Harlequin leaps into sight,
The hallelujah midnight diamonds
Of his tight limbs in the limelight
Like prismatic lozenges on a flying kite.
Into this proscenium he passes a white face,
A black mask and his laughing red bite.
In his right hand a black
Salami for a truncheon fight
A nightstick of greasy garlic
A giant joystick which might
Become an item of pornographic delight.
Columbine in crinoline,
She, of the picotee eyelash and redslapped cheeks,
Tiptoes in to offer up her fragile illusion,
Whimsies not in the same dimension as her
Roistering cher ami.
Such a little dove, seductively naive.
When the show is over, the takings counted,
The fairground dismantled, he goes home to the trailer
In his tired blue jeans with the empty pockets,
And he plays with the plumpnaked baby on the floor,
Drawing chuckles from its foodstained face.
Meanwhile, she pulls the old torn dress of
I am all things to all men over her milky paps.
Her unmanicured hands caress a wicked carver
And on a lamelegged table, carefully,
She begins to slice the salami.
1981