Clowning Around

by Amy Soricelli


My father didn’t think we were funny children. 
We weren't balloons across the ceiling or
painted horses.
The one circus he took us to was really
 a street fair he found on a train.
The Bronx men at the gate wore mustard-stained 
pants and smoked cigarettes to the bottom.

When the man in the striped vest and straw hat 
pointed water guns at the wooden board, 
my father said "here, like this" and I hoped 
for the doll with the red hair.
The spray went everywhere so the man
handed me an ashtray with a Hawaiian 
dancer painted in the middle.

After the ice cream lines of children in 
action-hero tees, we rode around in a 
little train against the fence.
The man driving the train wore clown shoes
and a red nose.  
The rest of him was regular.
The old lady from the across-the-street-apartment
building, laughed at us each time we went around
but there was nothing funny there.


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Amy Soricelli has been published in numerous publications and anthologies including Remington Review, The Westchester Review, Deadbeats, Long Island Quarterly, Literati Magazine, The Muddy River Poetry Review, Pure Slush, Cider Press Review, Glimpse Poetry Magazine, and many others. That Plane is not a Star, 4/2024, Dancing Girl Press; Carmen has No Umbrella but Went for Cigarettes Anyway, Dancing Girl Press 9/2021; Sail Me Away, Dancing Girl Press, 10/2019. Nominations: Pushcart Prize, 2021, Best of the Net 2020, 2013. Nominated by Billy Collins for Aspen Words Emerging Writer's Fellowship/2019, Grace C. Croff Poetry Award, Herbert H Lehman College, 1975