Bad Clowns in a Blue Van
I’m late for work and caught behind
a blue van on a quiet one-lane road
driving at the speed that skin wrinkles,
slowing to a near-stop at each curve.
I imagine the driver, born back when
William Taft got stuck in a bathtub,
a fossil crawling his way to the boneyard,
savoring each second until The Big Sleep.
I then remember a blue van from my youth,
a prop in some outrageous urban legend,
where inside the van, a band of bad clowns
waited to pounce from the back door
and snag kids—like me—walking home
from school and tying us to a steel gurney
in the back and torturing us with razors,
cutting out our tongues to stop us
from screaming. Many nights I lay awake
in bed imaging bad clowns in a blue van.
And now what if this is the same blue van
from my youth making me late for work,
but not driven by some wilted centenarian,
rather by the same bad clowns with razors
who have finally tracked me down?
While the driver applies his greasepaint
in the rearview mirror, the others clowns
wait to pounce from the van’s back door,
only they don’t need to torture me anymore,
seeing I’m already on my way to work.
Nathan Graziano lives with his wife in Manchester, New Hampshire. He is the author of ten books of poetry and fiction, and a columnist for Manchester Ink Link. His most recent short story collection, A Better Loser, is available from Roadside Press. For more information, visit his website: www.nathangraziano.com.
