Postcards

This is where the Ringling Brothers’ circus
wintered. The circus
wagons are painted green, almost the color of grass, or summer
leaves. The wagons stand in the museum, never moving. The
tourists photograph the green, unmoving wagons. The tourists
are wintering in Sarasota.

Tom Thumb says a brisk hello. He is nowhere to be seen.
The high-wire artists dance on air. They do not fall, ever.
The famous gorilla has a name. It cannot speak its name.
The circus wagons are painted green. The teams of horses
are absent.
The tourists buy postcards of tents and tigers and elephants.
The air-conditioning purrs. The tourists are wintering
in Sarasota.

From Visiting the Circus Museum, Sarasota, published in The Snowbird Poems by the University of Alberta Press in 2004. Robert Kroetsch is the author of many books, including The Studhorse Man, which won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 1969. This poem appeared in Geist 55.