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Now reading
The Clown
FEBRUARY 1979
SANDRA McPHERSON
THE CLOWN
For Arthur Hamilton Smith
There, between yellow fingernails,
was the first skull becoming human.
And the angels, who could use gold
paint, were also pedigreed in their time.
Whatever the order of beings, the clown
was roped off from our gods and our families.
Barren, a visitor of removable brains,
there under his blindingly pale face
(geisha layers-and yet nothing
is womanly about this Bubba)
shines a self to match, a blue and burning
spotlight determined to reach our gods
and our families. Sixty children are holding
their breath. He is as excited as fleas.
He falls with a bounce, a fish in his pocket
clangs, and he's somehow still dapper, the skinning
absorbed by gloves, and the laughter
directed at every kenspeckle part of him
stored in the fake shirrs of fat. To undo
the many-gored suit and the ruche, he surrenders
at home, feeling treatied a bit short
of his won city. He keeps on
the face. Only turns off the light.
The mirror doubles the gleams.
The first time, he washed his face too soon,
his eyes wouldn't clear, he saw streaks.
His friends saw them too, real as ghosts,
white Tom Sawyer swipes, a superficial job of it.
So for now he sits down, t-shirt and gardenia
face, a corsage on a chair.
Outside, the old two-storeys look
from night-lamped features. No matter
how many heads sleep inside, restless
parties flirt in and out of its mouth,
a house's eyes are lit in a stardom
bigger and more solitary than any human face.
His eyes shuttle then, eyes within eyes.
He wiggles his mouth, a working model of his greater
smile. Somewhere are nostrils, very small,
how little air this man beneath inflates on!
And so curious does he become at last
he will bow into the soap.