Proposal

Show me a tent of well-dressed witnesses
and I'll show you how a circus catches fire:

elephants trying to squeeze down the aisle,
monkeys dancing from pole to hot pole

until the roof collapses. Will you be water?
Will you be ashes? Will you be enough gauze

for a gown? In the stampede, a woman runs
ten yards before noticing the hand she holds

is not her husband's. She keeps running.
Do you blame her? Convince me eternity

is just this art of surviving, over and over.
Promise you're worth my weight in burning.

Copyright © 2007 Sandra Beasley All rights reserved
from Barn Owl Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission