They came down from the highlands

in their battered convertibles

with the rusted trim,

those proprietors and promoters

of the world’s greatest shows,

In search of a unicorn –

the unique freak

that no carnival

could be complete without.

After an afternoon

of endless searching,

in every sleepy

beer stained saloon

within twenty three miles

of where they had paid some gypsy

to tell them

where it should have been,

their patiences were depleted,

their car exhausted,

so they settled instead

for some destitute farmer’s

sad plow horse,

which they dyed blue

and then stuck on

a candy-striped papier-mâché horn.

And housed inside

the battered remains

of some moth-eaten tent,

the people all paid their quarters

so they could come inside

to scoff at it.