Mine is a story
Mourning widows avoid
And clowns do not want to hear.
Before I could start,
She showed me the scars
Of the old stitches on her belly.
The moment I smiled,
He asked about empty chairs
And muffled laughs in dimmed lights.
I felt her pain
Of losing and birthing
A husband and a fatherless son.
I knew how it was
When his memories of faces
Came masked to vanish into smoke.
I am a widow,
An old, arthritic clown
Waiting for children, looking for my child,