2016 Clown Sightings – Janice Kang
July 22, 2019
nigh night my speech impediment, perhaps, bleeds out from my crooked teeth stained with love((lessness))
“& what do ye ((cherubs in ribcage)) feel,” as the circus tonight bombinates & pitter patters like cotton candy shakes? sugarhighlover?
“naught,” they croon, or, perhaps, i am stuttering the near night heeding ‘gainst the crook of my shoulder her
shoulder which i stand up high-nigh on ballet slippers to placate my right ear upon,
hair framing my face like the wood ’round narcissistic mirror to which i have clown masks in left hand in in-
numerable defense. clown raids commence. i eat a ticket whole & tear myself in half with a dagger in hand
a metonymy for haunting. something haunts me & it is sterile felicity trying but fa(i / l)ling into the indigo on my knuckles. her nose is blushing she says, “it is clown remnants” I say—
naught. there are misfitting bats between my bloody hands their wings trembling ‘gainst my fingernails in
gruesome vulnerability. i have a headache of bluebells i wish
i were a vampire with milk teeth skin. immor(t)al & timeless like this rundown midnight carousel where
we spin in a teacup when no one is looking, bat-in-watcher’s-eardrums mixing
with his flesh a bouquet of funeral tunes. circus tunes & funeral tunes? i see naught hear naught.
the record player never stops, just re-broken rewinding that inverts the wings in life-line, static song transmitting through palms to patagia & bright red kissing.
a circus is a masquerade & we are clowns ‘midst primordial urgings luring dooms from our noses in trick or treat hide & seek.