--SURE.  WHATEVER YOU SAY IT WAS.

                           The Night Circus

This clown may not be a clown at all. 

He has a broken window mouth.  Chunks of glass for teeth.  Steaming brand for a tongue.  Manacle hands.

His too big shoes slap the bedroom floor.  The air swells wide then small, ripe and bruised.

If I scream it will boomerang back.  If I scream the ether will eat it.  If I scream nothing will stay nothing.

The clown’s eyes are crushed ice, cherry-colored snow cones leaking at the corners, gashing rivulets down his face, through his caked-on makeup.  His panting is coarse and prickly.

At the end of the mattress, he performs what he always claims is foreplay, juggling a set of butcher knives, with a stare fixed tight on me.

The moon through the window blinks across each flung blade, like flashing sparks or cyphers, while sweat runs away from me, my pulse a coward and deserter.

Before the clown can begin his next trick, I pluck a knife from the air, watch the circus tent collapse, the elephants escaping together, one by one, trunk to tail, trunk to tail.