A Circus In Germany Poem by Hans Ostrom

A small Roma circus drags Evolution

to Bretzenheim, tacks up posters,

circles battered vans and trailers,

lets animals and children out to stretch.



A llama and two camels with flaccid humps

stand beneath a canopy, munching nothing,

about them the air of wisdom and dung.



A child rides a hippopotamus onto grass.

She looks like a wart on a planet.

The hippo becomes a gray boulder

upholstered in leather. Its teeth are

as big as my fist, its legs as long

as my fingers. How many million

years ago was it a slender fish?



Villagers cut through the park

to peer at the bestiary. a stinking

goat, smirking camels, and stunted

ponies. Children under the tiny

plastic Big Top can be heard

to scream with glee. In there

creatures and people jump through hoops.


hans ostrom 2019