Jo McDougall: What We Need

It is just as well we do not see, 
in the shadows behind the hasty tent 
of the Allen Brothers Greatest Show, 
Lola the Lion Tamer and the Great Valdini 
in Nikes and jeans 
sharing a tired cigarette 
before she girds her wrists with glistening amulets 
and snaps the tigers into rage, 
before he adjusts the glimmering cummerbund 
and makes from air 
the white and trembling doves, the pair.

First published in Dirt, Autumn House Press, Pittsburgh, 2001. Copyright © 2001 by Jo McDougall. Reprinted by permission of the author.