12 Grades of Audible Clicks
- Teachers hug! 2. Do
cartwheels, 3. screw up. - They might be your
next-door neighbor. - Getting a bra is awful.
Teachers are 6. men, too. I’m - adaptable, 8. telekinetic?
In 9. love. 10. Isn’t theater
wonderful? There’s 11. an edge
here. 12. Screw you.
Before the Show
We arrived early with three boys plus
Gram—and trooped down three levels
to the actual three rings to see the human
cannon, meet the acrobat in white sequins
swinging gently in her hoop, and (hopefully)
touch the shuffling, long-lashed elephant.
The cannon, acrobat, and elephant
regarded us silently during the handler’s
educational speech, while three adults
kept resolute grips on three sweaty,
straining boys.
What we learned—quite suddenly and
in visceral detail, in a sub-one-minute
live-action snapshot that illuminated our lives
like a clear liquid lightening bolt—is that
an elephant can pee 43 gallons in one go.
We leapt back, astonished.
That’s 1.5 gallons per second of flow
blasting the sawdust into clouds
and foaming rapidly just, uh, spitting distance
from where we stood, agog.
Three out of three boys for once agreed
it was the greatest show on earth, worth
every curse and splatter.
Watched by crows and friend to salamanders, Lisa Creech Bledsoe is a hiker, beekeeper, and writer living in the mountains of Western North Carolina. She has new poems out in The Blue Mountain Review, American Writers Review, Sky Island Journal, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Red Fez, and River Heron Review.