Down's Syndrome at the Jazz Concert

The mongoloids are here; their yellow bus
is waiting at the curb.
They are pale chaff, against
a field of healthy tans.
They are naturals
to the elements of burlesque:
the pratfall, the double take, the drool.

No one in this crowd will laugh at the elements
in this unstudied form. We are still young
enough to incur God's wrath...young enough to conceive
these children, these forever children, for ourselves.

These old toddlers are able to move
with more than ordinary freedom
among all the other faces here,
faces not as open as their own.

A genetic glitch has given them a family...
a kinship that defies all bloodlines: the same face
here and there...watching the band, watching
each other. Most of them are standing
up front, taking trumpets full into their faces;
the brass is telling them something they
can understand.

This kind of thing makes them want to move
to burn off the energy into something that shines
like sunlight splashing off trumpets...
It always makes them hard to manage
on the long bus ride back out of the sun.