THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN

Wrought iron gates

Provide the backdrop

For the explosion of human remembrance

There’s been a hit a run

With a 52 year old paying the price

“Loved” “Best Grandma” “Beloved Wife”

Say all the hallmark cards

A lantern with tea light candles has gathered dust

Withered bouquets of roses have shrivelled

The ink has faded on handwritten declarations of love

But

Roll up roll up

Cirque de Soleil is in town!

Cable tied posters lay over the impromptu display

“I’ll never forget you” smothered by Samson the Counting Dog

Framed passages of divine mercy are buried since

The Body Contortionist is in town

With limbs adept at folding into boxes

As audiences clutch their overpriced sucrose

Plying their mouths with technicolour e-numbers

As the beat of trance music vibrates their bones

Are you not entertained?

And so we roll up, roll up

For the entertainment of today smothers

The losses of yesterday

Yet both are eventually blown away by indifferent winds

Which strip the wrought iron gates of both

Just the same