A would-be circus performer applies for a job and is asked a plain question: what can you do? The speaker answers with a wild list of talents, from reciting pi to a thousand places to finding flying objects blindfolded, and a joke that tips into the surreal: eating fire is nothing, they excrete it. But the interviewer ignores all of it. He only wants to know how much they drink, assuming anyone turning up like this must be running away from something.
The speaker feels stung and insulted, though they hide it behind a sharp little line, "Your loss," said to the man's back. The mood is comic but sad. The closing image, shuffling to the bus stop in big clown shoes with blisters rising on tentacles, is funny and strange, and it suggests someone odd, gifted and unwanted. The poem seems to be about being judged by a stereotype instead of being seen for what you can actually do.