on the fringe

... a festival celebrating the marginal. those living on the edge, in the gutters of culture, on the mountains of merriment making music, happiness, balloon animals for the world. elephant ears, fried bread dough slathered in margerine and icing sugar -- "at the same time" my husband insists. mid-bite he laughs and i'm an icing sugar baby. young boy eating fire, old man doing disco, twentysomething trying to juggle, failing miserably. "is that an oboe?" my lover asks of an asian man and his eastern instrument. i laugh, sigh, stop in wonder at a man frozen in time painted in black dedicated to the globe he lifts when money is dropped in his hat. some trick, i mutter, marveling at the same time. it's all a marvel. this life, this living on the fringe. i start to skip and fall into a gutter.