Sawdust rings

[Keith]

I wanted the real photograph
not the straw bales
and candy apple faces.

The circus tent's veil of glamour
soon returns to canvas and rope
as sticky children skip away,
trailing laughter.

I walk small among the closing down
and creep my shadow on billboard walls,
side shows glow behind busy glances.
The thin slit of a caravan door sheds light
from a world not seen before.

She sits straight on a high-back chair
smearing lines across her face,
high above the audience she climbs
each night with dusted hands
and plans a ballerina’s fake escape.
The old trailer offers up whiskey tainted
whispers as the low lights dim and surge.
She spoke plainly, knowing I had to listen.

Is this the picture you would take from me?
The empty glass reality of aching limbs
and crippled hands, a life that seeped
on traveled cracks between
your towns and fields
each poster pasted
over stolen miles and years.

My name is Alina, you should at least know that,

I didn’t answer, I stayed a coward, hidden
while my camera stole everything she had left.