Straight, No Chaser

All praise the juggling club
Their faux-bowling pins and unicycles
The glory of balance
The heptagon of grass they claim

You can sell pharmaceuticals
Or take them, or make them
Collide and collude, complain
About artisanal s’mores, square-

Roots of otiose issues, bureaus
Of bad jazz, dry kugel, feckless,
Reckless youths and new
Contagions daily – the juggling club

Adjusts the space, the props,
Their pace if not laconic, measured
Until one releases into
The companionship of air

A hoop, then two, a third,
A constable of circles with shifting
Displacements – it seems defiant
Though all are uncertain

What laws are being broken,
What transgression or trespass,
The ability to send and receive
Each toss a service with

Its own calculus, enlisting
The cooperation of faithful
Gravity, lone constant
in this small circus within

the academic bigtop, though that
is probably untrue – the next
vignette, a boy and girl contorting
to create a T, and then the preacher

who spares no one his ardent
concern for our souls – go
watch the juggling club, mister
righteousness – their companions

the wide sky, small weighted shapes,
a dog, and fellowship – I am sure
these are the kingdom’s doors,
locks unpadded, uncombined,

the jugglers daily practice
a devotion of hands and eyes –rarely
do I see them go to class –
and upward gaze, the key.