Sad Clown World, by Ziggy Edwards

The Modern Human, by Bill Karaffa (USA) contemporary. Click image to visit artist on Instagram.

​Sad Clown World

​You tread on this world like anybody
     while in your mind it’s your job
     to keep the whole thing aloft

You need a break, the spotlight never strays
     so you give the floor part of your weight
     just for a moment or two

Sustaining those deflaters and stompers
    in ruffles and curls who rule the big top
    hunched against the firmament

That’s how I spotted you: contorted yet unguarded
     behind gallery-goers shifting foot to foot 
     trying eye contact on a carpet of plastic fabric

Your hot light is the truth
     because we are watching, but you can’t see
     other worlds on either side, on all the walls 

I place hope in the canvas behind your face
     and continue my sweaty tightrope through a room
     where I’m the only one seeing it upside down

Ziggy Edwards

Ziggy Edwards edits the online zine Uppagus, among other things. Her poems and short stories have appeared in publications including 5 AM, Grasslimb, yawp magazine, Illumen, and Dreams & Nightmares. Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange published her first chapbook, Hope's White Shoes, in 2006.