Clown Wife
Solly, this life will be the death of us.
Fat man prat-falling,
each laugh hurts like a punch
for my poodle-man in a flimsy ruff.
Otto says he no longer finds you funny,
walks you like a tiger he has broken
and taken pleasure breaking.
I’ll hold your heart up to all of them,
heavy glass jar of thick, bright honey,
show how it curls in its hot descent.
Solly, the boatman’s waiting to carry us away.
Let it be tonight you vanish inside that costume,
its empty cloud collapsing on the stage,
an iron lung you won’t need where we are going.
* Pippa Little says: I live in Northumberland, write poetry and collect sea-glass. Overwintering comes out from Oxford Poets next October and The Snow Globe, Red Squirrel Press, this autumn. One day I hope to find a cake stand and a hostess trolley just like my grandmother's.
