The Pub

Balthazar and Barth’s

Jeff Smith

Greatest Show on Earth:
forty-seven-year-olds in loafers
gathered around a bowtied man,
whispering orchestral oohs and ahhs.

Contortionists stretch their eschatologies,
the trinity dances on a tattooed woman’s arm,
and cannonball men skim over heresy
by the skin of their systematics.

Theologians are both:
children captivated by a ringmaster
who made a lion lay down with a lamb,
and a gaggle of clowns in ties,
dancing on the heads of bowling pins.