It is interesting to watch
the grease-paint melt,
slip down these faces and
slicken the floor in this
glorified playing house.

Oh, the costumes stay,
adhere even, to the clammy,
overfed skins in which
these players live

and feed. And that's
where I come in. ENTER:
STAGE RIGHT tray held high;
liquor, tinkling with ice and
just the right amount of
glitter for this cabaret.

And backstage, the techies
swear and sweat over dirty
flames, spitting fat and
the delicacy of haute cuisine;
high as the fires of hell.

Curtain call: at the evening's
end we leave the boards, the
Front of House and undress.
Dancers, actors, jesters all,
hang up the trappings that
make this circus tick

and return to the mud-spattered,
trodden-down dreams
of the lives we led before
the showman stole our souls.