All winter the mummified blue whale 
is hauled through Hungary
                          in an oversized trailer

Wherever it parks a small carnival sprouts 
to offer spun sugar and fortunes
                         bouts of muscle and luck

But mostly people flock 
to the pop-up spectacle
                        to gawk at the whale

Some are lured to a sideshow cage 
to stare at the oddity under the sign
                        Man-Moth—Bride-Groom of Fire

who glowers just now after
turning the torch back on his captors
                        nursing their burns

Wings tucked he’s sullen and does nothing 
to help his landlocked audience escape
                         the long winter of their dictatorship

Expelling little clouds of breath 
they drift from his display
                         to the chilly queue for the blue whale

Waiting for a peek at the behemoth 
they clamp their hands in their armpits
                        and stamp their feet

When their turn finally comes
they step past the ticket taker
                        into the dark that smells of the sea

and up to the smudged glass 
where the view is of
                      a bruise-colored expanse of flesh

that goes on and on
like the hillocks and swales
                      of the Great Hungarian Plain

Visitors edge along the dim-lit 
corridor until startled
                      by the leviathan’s glass eye

Most folks flinch and duck away 
shaking their heads
                      more troubled than when they came

Back home they snap off the one station’s panic 
over the escape
                      of the sideshow Moth-Man

and knock back shots of brandy 
staring out windows
                     as the heavy trailer groans up the highway