by Janet Hanna
In the evenings,
on alternate Tuesdays,
in neat, even rows,
Old Mike would arrange the chairs,
borrowed from Greenlawn Arms,
and the townspeople would come
to watch her fall off the cliff.
Each Tuesday she would wear
a different color scarf
as a kind of cape.
But the black jumpsuit
and the ballet slippers
were always the same.
Even though the hotdog and cotton candy
vendor complained that
people didn’t come hungry enough,
she never fell before 6:00,
before the sky turned mauve.
Once in a while
the mayor would seek
to get the day changed to Friday,
and sometimes a child
would cry out in fear.
But the old folks
for the most part
supported her,
because falling off the cliff
was her specialty
and she did it uncommonly well.
