I claimed to be all out of tears,
though I’m sure I’d just heard that phrase somewhere
and thought it sounded hardboiled. Like
something a detective would say to a beautiful woman
who is not impressed. And still, I was sad,
but not sad so much as resigned to the whims of clowns.
I claimed to be whole. But that was a front, in clowns’
makeup, a fake-out, a mask with drawn-on tears.
In reality, I was far from sad.
In reality, I was off somewhere,
looking for a home, looking for the woman
with whom I was in love, and who I didn’t even like.
That’s not true, either. In fact, I was nothing like
a man in love—and much more akin to a clown’s
saggy ass. And in truth, the reason was a woman.
I think. Though it was really hard to see through the tears,
to see the horizon of perspective, off somewhere
beyond the edge of town, at the intersection of desperate and sad.
By noon the next day I was tired of this sad
sack complaining, and I resigned myself to act like
a grownup, over lunch somewhere
expensive, and then coffee, at the place clowns
go to die, drowning in their own tears.
All of this to impress a woman!
Had I been a woman,
I’d have been repulsed by this sad
posturing—the artificial tears
and unconvincing tales of woe. Like
a bar where only clowns
drink, acting like nowhere is somewhere.
I wanted to go somewhere
else, somewhere new, with the woman
of my dreams—not a nightmare filled with clowns.
I wanted to be through with this sad
life, and reengage like a butterfly, like
a cloud, like a rainbow sprung from God’s tears.
You clowns! I know you’re hiding somewhere,
behind your tears, behind the love of a woman,
where happy is sad. But we’re all alike.
