Clown

by Lisa Buscani

My boy
fly boy
Sky
stood on the platform
and waited for the train.
In the season of time
at the time of night
when the fetid air
and lack of light
remind you that
the world is cold
and you are alone.

But he was not.
The man slicked his hair back like
fake teddy bear glory,
wore a grin as sticky
as greasepaint,
groomed his full black mustache,
the talisman of butch prowess,
cinched his ever-expanding waistline
in a bloated line of power,
and kept his mind tight.

Had he ever considered the clown?
the man asked Sky
that the right face could be so basic
in any occupation.
That laughter hitches in the throat with no notice,
the simple, delightful element
of surprise...
Clown faces ran from the man's paint brush often
and would Sky like to see?
The man thrust a sunny hand forward,
drew up a big-sky stance,
opened his smile wide
and introduced himself as
John Wayne Gacy.

Sky stepped back.
Stepped back from possible futures,
sidestepped to the ready shell kept
for friendly strangers,
stepped apart from the boys
who wore their blood in their pout,
who could reconcile a moment of sex
with a lifetime of survival,
who had tasted just enough bad days
to pan hope from the attentions
of a sad, fat, old queen,
whose throats circled small
in the onset of horror,
whose lips parted with
the force of constricted wind,
whose screams raced under
and above their skin,
whose eyes were flat
as the beat they lost.
Thirty-three boys,
bathed in freeze frame,
thirty-three boys,
lying soft in their blood.

Sky stepped back.
No, man
no.