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.