Lillian Leitzel enters the ring,
and a mad-eyed parrot in a cage
on a porch a block away from me
hangs upside down and screeches, mocking
industrious martins and hip-hop jays.

I turn a page, and Lillian grips
the rings (her palms dry as ash);
she begins to turn like a human propeller
and no one below can stop staring
until the cymbals crash.

She taught her body to spin like this
by slipping her shoulder out of the socket,
which now she can do like doffing a hat
for she is the Queen of the Roman Rings;
caution is dust in her pocket.

Then you wordlessly tease away
my book with a look that could singe
the afternoon clouds into caramel. We dis-
locate each other; the air crystallizes
and fills with calliope fringe

and an emerald skink continues to lounge
outside upon our porch rail,
consuming the self it has sloughed away
chewing its old skin with freakshow calm
savoring the tail

as Lillian spins. A woodpecker hen
pursues her mate up through a riddled tree
and into the sky (your light
light blue eyes).
Day of resisted gravity.