Teresa Carson of Union City, NJ
They're part of her as yet unpublished second book and have their roots in Spoon River, Tod Browning, and the Mutter Museum.

Jolly Sal Expects the Nineteenth Show of the Day Will Go Just Like the Other Eighteen

The grind will goad. The men will shuffle in.
Not even half will take off hats.
The air will stink of sweat and cow.
She will wriggle to You Naughty, Naughty Men.
When the gripe ain’t worth the nickel flares,
she will inch her hem waist-high.
Her tits will shake. Their cocks will rise.
Coins will fly; some hit her face and arms.
Her stick—a canvasman today—will be the first to buy
The Life of Jolly Sal: World’s Fattest Girl.
He will whistle when he looks inside.
Many more booklets will be bought.
The men, as they clear out, will not look back.
She will sit and wait for Karl to shout SHOW TIME.

Mirabel

Where I grew up the red clay tastes
of thunder, cotton, Rebel blood.
One mouthful always stopped my heaves
when father finished doing what
he did. I never liked the taste
of grey Ohio dirt. And yet my mouth
was filled with it when Monkey Boy
tripped over me. There’d been no search.
The town suspicioned: she ran off
with the tattooed man from the monster show.
Their proof? Miss Wren, the teacher, swears
she saw them in the husband’s store!
Alfred figured my love for Kate
would keep me tied to here. Poor man—
the loss of Herman broke his heart
and New York couldn’t fix his pain.
He thought that coming home to Paradise
would do the trick. It did for him.
I tried and tried but didn’t fit—
and never would—a place where wives
thought homespun dresses fine, and cared
how clothes were hung on lines, and hadn’t read
or even heard of Mister Emerson,
and never questioned what their husbands did.
I dreamed of joining Barnum’s show.
Why, hadn’t Monsieur Conte praised
my range? Better than Lind, he swooned.
But that dream died and then I dreamed
again. Who knew how it would end?
Monkey Boy wept and held my hand
until the first bird sang. In what
seemed like no time at all, my white-
with-red-trim dress rotted to thread
and joined the grey Ohio dirt.

The Life Story and Facts of the Monkey Man

A newly discovered, most singular specimen.
Homo ferus. Infinitesimal degrees above the ape.
Fully grown but its language—grunts and clicks—doesn’t rival
that of a civilized toddler. So used to walking on all fours
it needs a cane to stand up straight.

Captured in the nude state in the deepest depths of darkest Africa.
Put up quite a struggle—fought fiercely with the force of three.
At first it was full of monkey antics, ugly in temper,
and hard to manage but, in time, its keeper’s patient kindness
subdued its savagism. Even learnt to dress itself.

Its curiously shaped head more Orang than man. Ears set back
a full inch further than yours or mine. Teeth doubled
nearly all around—notice its huge, projecting cuspids.
It needed them in the jungle where its diet consisted
of tree bark, beetles, nuts, and—yes—raw flesh.

Last month, in Washington, the world-renowned Professor Larch
performed an extensive examination and pronounced
This creature, of a race hitherto unknown to men of science,
represents the emergence of a missing stage
in the long history of humankind.

Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t miss this once-in-your-lifetime chance,
witness three millennia back in time.
Step inside, view this remarkable wonder for yourself.
Form your own opinion:
Is it the grand connecting link between humans and brutes?

The Truth about the Monkey Man

Week shy of eight when Kelly, sitting
on the back porch with Lu, spotted him
during a visit to Buck’s Parlor House
in Paradise, Ohio. What looked like
a scraggly mutt ran, first on all fours then
two feet then four, through the yard chased
by Buck himself. Lu said Customers ain’t
supposed to see one hair of that poor coot.
But for an extra two bits she led Kelly
to a shed by the sty. The dark-skinned boy, crouched
in the corner, grunted as he ripped bread with his teeth.
Don’t call him nothin’ but Boy.

Buck’d kept him to appease his best earner
but she’s slacked off since catchin’ the cough
and her boy costs me more than she’s worth.
But then again, Buck shrugged, Boy pleased
some bigwigs: Mayor says he’s got
a quicker mouth than Nell.

Mister V. bought Boy for a washpan filled with coins
and passes to Sunday’s show for Buck and his girls.
They drank blackstrap to close the deal.

Boy scratched and bit when Jolly Sal
scrubbed his bony body. She went light
on the pink scar-patches.

For Boy’s debut, Jake built a special cage—
its door secured with three thick chains
and three big locks. He painted a sign:
NO CHILDREN NEXT TO BARS
NO HANDS IN CAGE
DO NOT FEED DO NOT WHISTLE

Peg sewed a dog-fur costume for him.
He liked her best because sometimes—
mostly when drunk and remembering her Billy—
she put her arms around him while she sang:
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
There will be one vacant chair.

Boy quickly learned his act; nineteen times a day
he jabbered, howled, climbed the bars—
bared his teeth if someone reached between—
and pulled feathers off dead birds
Kelly threw in the cage.

One afternoon, in Lebanon, he crawled
under a wagon, to watch trousers and skirts.
A crinoline caught his eye;
her screams made him grab tighter.
From then on Kelly locked him up
whenever marks were around.
But late at night, while town and carnies slept,
he prowled for miles, listened, touched and sniffed.

A dandy offered Mister V.
an X-spot to have Boy until the next
matinee. Because that week’s tips hadn’t
made the nut, he took the deal.
A bad business decision—for the next ninety-five shows
Boy lay motionless and hissed if anyone
touched him. His bleeding took two weeks to stop.
Doc said the damage might be permanent.

Next season Mister V. purchased a girl
from a family in West Virginia.
That summer Monkey Woman and Monkey Man
got hitched two hundred fifteen times.
Good tips, town after town, just went to show
what Mister V. was fond of saying
Nothing sells tickets like a wedding!

You break the rules, you pay the price; don’t matter if
that fool was on the border of snakeland.
The gin he bought me didn’t buy a fuck. He must
have figured that out when my knuckles smacked
his jaw. Oh, you’re surprised I bested him? Hey look,
at eight, Chicago’s streets became my home.
A gang of kids used me to stall their marks. I fit
right in with all the other boys until my chest
grew tits. When they found out they did just what
you’d think they’d do. Instead of riding out of town
with tail between my legs, I earned my keep
in the back rooms of saloons where any appetite
could find a meal. Within one night I’d flip
and flip again: from gown to top hat, cock to pussy…
no one in the Levee raised a brow.
Then the fool I punched fell down and cracked his nut.
Who knew he’d kick the bucket by first light?
Who knew the stink-raised-to-high-heaven by his wife
could make his buds stop drinking long enough
to swear We’ll make that Nancy-devil do the dance.
The Golden Eagle’s bartend spilled the beans
so I was on the lam before they, rope in hand,
came back. Stayed underground through spring. Then read,
in New York Clipper, WANTED ODDITIES. Now ten
YOU WON’T BELIEVE UNLESS YOU SEE IT times
a day, I cinch my waist, paint half my face, curl half
my hair, strip half my clothes, and, since this show’s
a Sunday School one, no rube touches me—except
after the lot goes dark, when I prowl towns
in search of Gentlemen and Ladies with a taste
for private showings of my special tricks.