Boyhood Carnival

Come on in and see a sight

You'll never see again my man

A giantess as black as night

With enormous feet, an African.

We entered in the darkened tent

And suddenly my heart was filled

With pain and all my being rent

By this tragedy of life distilled.

From her purple swollen lips

No murmur broke, no cry of rage,

Immured within those massive hips

She sat in her flesh as in a cage

And all the sorrow of the earth

Lay in the darkness of those eyes

And all the pain of grotesque birth

And life that's dead before it dies.

As I glanced into her chair

At all her gross deformity,

I looked into her eyes and there

Reflected was a part of me.

Now forty years have passed me by

Yet there by the Grace of God am I.