Offering the chance to run away and join a project of great originality and distinctiveness, this collection of poetry is stocked with colorful personalities who earn their living under the big top--from clowns and acrobats to tightrope walkers and lion tamers. Recreating the drama of the center ring with enough peek-behind-the-curtain moments to ground this secret society in the nitty-gritty of marriage, parenthood, old age, and death, this anthology is a high-wire act in itself, putting on a show to be marveled over--carefully choreographed, death-defying, full-tumble, and exceptionally daring.