Forge

[ellajam]

Hi Donald, an enjoyable read, some notes below.

She was a contortionist sword-swallower and a failure, accordingly. (I haven't been able to see the value in "accordingly") Her brother, estranged, was a contortionist sword-swallower and strongman with a business, making bespoke throat bent ironwork. (I can't make sense of making bespoke, I can see the play on spoke but it's a stumble for me.) He'd won prizes. He had a profile in the New Yorker, he was an artist. But she was  just a performer, touring cross country under the smell of sawdust and candyfloss.
                (I love the idea of the opening, and the simplicity of the description contrasts nicely with the language below.)
Evert evening she draped herself around a blade, bending with the crowd's ooos... she was a candelabra of cutlasses, a human vane in the night-wind.  (Big fan of these two phrases, love the sonics and imagery.) But no matter how good her act, she was not satisfied. For each time the supple metal righted itself, removed edge straight again; (Removed...again has an awlwardness to it. I'm not sure you need the phrase at all. ) impressed only with the ghostly slick of her gut.
                The tent was put up and taken down, the people blew in then out, the sword inserted and withdrawn, limbs switched and returned. Her manoeuvres left no imprint upon the sword. All was pointless.(I like the switch back to simple facts. )
                 Her self-doubt deepened. Her coiled body, a fallow tract, a whorl to nowhere. (I would prefer the comma after "body" to disappear.) She became her own slowest torturer. The roars of the dusk audience dimmed.  After many years all she could taste was the metal, all the time. When the circus closed she did not move. (I'm on the fence on "move", it seems a missed opportunity for a better word.) When her brother died she did not speak. She billowed and bloomed like a jellyfish, transparent and torpid. (Yes this.) She only animated when she put her sword in. (Something is unsatisfying about the last line, I don't think it's the thought, maybe the language.)

Thanks for the read.









(Sorry I know prose poetry looks shit in forum formatting, thanks for reading!)