Everyone Knows Poem by Nan Williamson

everyone knows
Everyone knows it's unsettling
yellow blooms in a tall blue glass
chimes ringing under twisted trees
nine golden elephants ears silver-tipped
keep time with swinging trunks
under a moon edged in green

a rough-tongued gargoyle mutters low
no clowns allowed
but the nude in the doorway
smuggles them in disguised
as peddlers offering blue apples

you see their footprints in the dust

no one plays the piano
the nude licks her lips
tips her flute to the sky
nine clowns shuffle
flat feet in a slow motion dance
under midnight chandeliers

smoothed by long fingers your eyelids
grow heavy a violet voice
punctuates the dark sky chants for elephants
clowns fools and the tall black man
juggles his torches in time with the flute

everyone knows the best dreams slip in as clouds