We are rushing into the courthouse, the big top,
with our acts set, waiting for our cue to go on,
today we are witnesses; today we are performers.

My sister and I quiver with nerves,
soon we are center ring, under the spotlight.
?
Put your hand on the Bible,

“Do you..?”
"I swear to tell the whole truth
And nothing
nothing but, what my little adolescent brain can recall”.

We are a family of freaks, a motley.
People who no longer piece together.
Three children, one father,
Two children, one mother,
One mother, one child,
One child, two choices.

Once outside the heavy oak door,
waiting on the falsely padded benches,
tears trickle down my pale cheeks,
too many to hold, too heavy to push down,
but I try harder, to appear as strong
as the muscle man, center ring.

Then we are home;

with that one child, that little elephant who waits in the center of the room
He will have to go back soon,
back to his keeper, his mother, my wicked stepmother, the ringleader
who calls the shots and controls this elephant’s act
disregarding the rule of the ring,
the time allotted to the father.
They are legal part time owners of this little elephant.

The father, he is an acrobat
walking on a thin wire,
stories above the ground without a net.
He performs tricks and stunts,
anything for the sake of his little elephant.

We pile out of tiny clown cars,
paint on our over exaggerated
ear to ear grins,
but no words slip past the bars
of our toothy smiles.

Kept in two separate cages
this little elephant will grow.
He will learn not to mention the ringleader
when the acrobat is dangling from the high wire.