Who Will Go to the Circus
When They Take Away the High Wire

The bell tower is now empty
& Quasimodo is hanging on by a thread.
The mob below in the market square
is cheering for the triumph of failure.
He is ugly & they want him to die.
Sirens, far off, wail of another's urgency.
The night is thick & heavy
like the squalid silence of an emergency room;
I walk quietly through it.
Ahead, a red pulse illuminates liquid forms.
The crowd is mingling in nervous speculation
& I have been assimilated within its vibratory mass.

Perched on the ledge of disaster,
a gaunt shadow of a man
engaged in some private debate
whose only solution can either be Yes or No.
He has a captive audience
humming in excitement beneath him,
but his eyes are not upon them.
The spotlight is on him;
he is the performer.
I could not make out his face
but I imagined compacted there
enough pain for an entire world.
At least that is how I chose to believe he would look.
I could not stay to watch any longer
for I suddenly realized
that I really wanted to see him jump.
I could not stay
because he reminded me of me.

- Barry Kapke, 1979
Berkeley, CA