Siobhán Campbell
A Fine Line
If, in the many-spangled cheek of a high wire walker,
the print of a footstep edges towards her pretty ear;
if she is used by the elephant act before the interval
while out back the hippo is hosed down to keep him cool
and in the tent this lumbering creaser is approaching
her small white cheek and the fool signals the foot to fall –
Elephant keeper, how could you let it happen?
How could you take us to the brink of ourselves,
knowing that we make her fly through our sparked clapping,
how we swing our emotional track when she runs the wire?
We could nearly have cried if the moment became a story.
Given all this, that it is ruined, will we return, chanting slogans
about cruelty, root you off that green we laid near the parks?
the print of a footstep edges towards her pretty ear;
if she is used by the elephant act before the interval
while out back the hippo is hosed down to keep him cool
and in the tent this lumbering creaser is approaching
her small white cheek and the fool signals the foot to fall –
Elephant keeper, how could you let it happen?
How could you take us to the brink of ourselves,
knowing that we make her fly through our sparked clapping,
how we swing our emotional track when she runs the wire?
We could nearly have cried if the moment became a story.
Given all this, that it is ruined, will we return, chanting slogans
about cruelty, root you off that green we laid near the parks?
Siobhán Campbell’s most recent collection is The Cold that Burns (Blackstaff Press). She has been Writer-in-Residence at Airfield Trust, Dublin, and is currently on the Faculty of Creative Writing at Kingston University, London.
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