{"id":8989,"date":"2025-04-30T23:58:27","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T05:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8989"},"modified":"2025-04-30T23:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T05:58:27","slug":"circus-baby","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8989","title":{"rendered":"Circus Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Melissa E. Jordan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Over the bassinet and out the window\u00a0<br>came bristly small things, then\u00a0orangutans and\u00a0giraffes,\u00a0<br>stomping primevally up the gravel driveway\u00a0<br>before scattering,\u00a0<br>fading into the cottonwoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I tried to joke about it most mornings.<br>\u201cMy brain\u2019s gone all wrong,\u201d I\u2019d drawl,\u00a0<br>my palms pivoting on the windowsill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But the last word dragged out, not comically,\u00a0<br>but a lunatic gong,\u00a0<br><em>wrooooooong<br><\/em>And I couldn\u2019t stop peering through the screening brush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One morning I heard an elephant\u2019s strangled trumpet,<br>and the treetops begin to shimmer \u2014<br>I heard the faint screams of humans.<br>I was awake, I was surely awake,\u00a0<br>but the sound came again, a monster\u2019s cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Then a hot air balloon breached the closest mesa,<br>braying air and filling the sky,<br>glorious and grotesque:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">How it was so suddenly\u00a0<em>there<\/em>,<br>an assault of color and shriek.<br>Like that birthing room shock, the surreal trick \u2014<br>a woman splits in two, then holds herself in her arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n&nbsp;\n\n\n\n<hr\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>MELISSA E. JORDAN<\/strong>\u00a0lives in Connecticut. Her recent poetry collection,\u00a0<em>Red Low Fog\/Transcript<\/em>\u00a0(Animal Heart Press, 2022) is a hybrid of poetry and fiction. Her previous collection,\u00a0<em>Bain-Marie\u00a0<\/em>(Big Wonderful Press) was published in 2015. Jordan\u2019s poems have appeared in\u00a0<em>The Cossack Review, The Dillydoun Review, Open: Journal of Art &amp; Letters, Word Riot, Otis Nebula, Terrain, Off the Coast, Rat\u2019s Ass Review,<\/em>\u00a0and elsewhere.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Melissa E. Jordan Over the bassinet and out the window\u00a0came bristly small things, then\u00a0orangutans and\u00a0giraffes,\u00a0stomping primevally up the gravel driveway\u00a0before scattering,\u00a0fading into the cottonwoods. I tried to joke about it most mornings.\u201cMy brain\u2019s gone all wrong,\u201d I\u2019d drawl,\u00a0my palms pivoting &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=8989\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":8984,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8989","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2kZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8997,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8989\/revisions\/8997"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}