The yellow, three-masted tent has come down.
The yawning tiger, children’s laughter, clowns,
elephants and acrobats have packed up and
departed for another town.
All that remains here is a wind-blown field
and rows of high-rise buildings with indifferent
faces and a man playing an accordion to a
monkey on a leash beneath a solitary apple tree.
I think about you often, trying to remember
who you are and when we met
and what you may have looked like.
In that twilight did we see two fires blazing in the field?
Did we see two ravens rising from the apple tree,
leaving two white silhouettes behind?
The ravens must have heard the music and smiled
at the monkey but I wonder if they noticed me
or you– or whoever I was with
when the circus abandoned us for some other town.
© 2013 J.M. Keating