General Tom Thumb Visits the Dundee Lunatic Asylum

Those with diminished senses

look at the man with restricted height,

standing there in full Highland garb.

He did the latest skit from his sell out stage show,

performing for those unknowing,

though not one lunatic laughed.

Then both sides, unashamed,

stared for a moment

in utter wonder at the other

before the orderlies intervened.

One who was cured years later

doubted whether it had occurred,

whether the American dwarf,

Barnum’s goldmine,

had wandered on to his ward

one day while psychosis raged,

or if it was rather some crooked joke

invented by his illness.