‘What We Need’

American Life in Poetry: Column 055
By Ted Kooser
U.S. poet laureate

A circus is an assemblage of illusions, and here Jo McDougall, a Kansas poet, shows us a couple of performers, drab and weary in their ordinary lives, away from the lights at the center of the ring.

What We Need
It is just as well we do not see,
in the shadows behind the hasty tent
of the Allen Brothers Greatest Show,
Lola the Lion Tamer and the Great Valdini
in Nikes and jeans
sharing a tired cigarette
before she girds her wrists with glistening amulets
and snaps the tigers into rage,
before he adjusts the glimmering cummerbund
and makes from air
the white and trembling doves, the pair.

From “Dirt,” Autumn House Press, Pittsburgh, 2001. Copyright (c) 2001 by Jo McDougall, whose most recent book is “Satisfied With Havoc,” Autumn House Press, 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author and Autumn House Press. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The doctor is in

Three cheers for Rockford, defender of dissertations and doctor of plant biology! (or something like that; please don’t ask exactly what it is he does. I know it isn’t microbiology, and it isn’t soil science. But that’s as far as my knowledge goes. Thank you.)

A post-nap surprise


Just after Poppy woke up from her nap a few days ago, Marsha hopped up onto the bed and laid down on the baby’s lap. Poppy was beyond herself with excitement. She’s recently started (very, very slowly and laboriously) chasing Marsha around the living room. And suddenly, there she was! Right in Poppy’s lap! Ripe for the squishing and fur-pulling!

I was torn: Leave them there and run for the camera? Take Poppy with me and hope we could re-create the moment?

I let Poppy kneed Marsha’s fur for a little while, then picked her up and dashed for the camera. It took a little bit of coaxing to get Marsha to come back, but come back she did. She didn’t go straight for Poppy’s lap this time, but she got close enough to be within arm’s reach.