Holding her hands up
She waved the shackles about her head
Cuffed to one hand, the other waved
She span the manacles like some cheap plate trick
I could hear the bored eyes in the crowd
Rolling back, eyelids falling down.
‘EYE YAM MOTHERFUCKING HOUDINI THAT’S WHO’
She struck the shadowed audience with her words;
A black mass sweating and seething
Bubbling into the light and back out.
Her face was cracking, peeling in front
Transforming in the red light
As decay on fast-forward
She swung them and it latched,
Locked onto the other hand
She had imprisoned herself
A rope appeared on the floor
She looped it through the O
Between her shoulders and hands
Throwing the rope off the otherside of the stage
It went up and up and up
The lights went blue
And she rose from the stage screaming
Levitating like Jesus or a witch or flying fish
She span her body through the hole
Some malevolent gymnast she was
And then she fell back onto the stage
A bloody pulp on the floor
The lights went a sickly green
She rose up, her arms
Free and moving
The rope and the cuffs
Nowhere to be seen.
And She was smiling
At each and every one in the darkness
Daring us to ask her again
Noone saying anything
She walked from the stage
Still watching us
With her overinflated eyes,
I am never going back to the circus.
