Poetry of Issue #7 Page 11
Lunch Break with Skiddles
I open my thermos
and man named Frank, a co-worker
whose main job is clowning,
tells me to call him Skiddles,
like all of the kids, parents,
and his fellow clowns do
at birthday parties, assemblies, and conventions.
He pulls joy buzzers out of a brown paper bag.
A red nose rolls
across the grimy Formica table.
Skiddles grabs it with his meaty hand
before it falls to floor, covered
in oil stains shaped like Illinois and Wisconsin:
a strange, enlarged map of the Midwestern United States.