My Uncle

For three days after his operation, my uncle lay on my grandmother's couch. He'd brought sun glasses and a Walkman with him and lay silent and motionless for hours on end. No one could tell if he was asleep; no one wanted to disturb his rest. My grandmother hummed around him. At night she turned the lights off and he sank into obscurity, never lifting those sun glasses. A few times he came to the table to eat, tell stories, entertain us, and quickly return to his resting spot on the dull leather couch. When I visited my grandmother it took me a couple minutes to notice him. It was more than an hour before he noticed me, calling to me without turning his head. Everything was going well, I told him. He made a joke and fell silent again. The headphones projected stories onto the lenses of his glasses and he watched patiently like a well-mannered boy trapped inside a theater. After three days he took the glasses off, the door was opened and he left. I haven't seen him since.

His leather tie was badly made,
Knotted awkwardly sideways.
It hung over the black clothing
He'd brought back from Germany, as if to say
I have tried
But failed miserably and now come back to
Live in the house I share
With a red-haired woman
Where I draw these intricate drawings
In black and white.
In these drawings I saw endless reflections
Of leather ties.

My friend Alec is now a few months into clown school and is eager to talk about it. Yet when I ask for famous clowns, heroes of his, beacons of comic genius and physical prowess who shine their lights across the dull gray sea of the audience, he names none. Famous clowns are not like famous authors. Theirs is an art all together momentary and fragile. Yet there was one clown he did mention: someone by the name of Bolfo or some such nonsense. Bolfo has his own car when it comes time to load the Wringling Brother's train. The train is a mile long, Alec insists. But I just can't picture a train that long, full of clowns, various animals, alcoholics and train engineers. We laugh about it. When he was 17 Alec almost joined the navy. The recruiter with his well cut uniform looked Alec squarely in the eyes and told him that on aircraft carriers they have an entire floor reserved for arcades. Alec signed up the next day and it was with some effort that his parents got him to back out, ignore the constant phone calls, and forget the navy altogether. We laugh about this too but this time our laughter is thin and metallic. I know Alec's thinking about Bolfo, all alone in his car, staring out the window and tapping his ring against the railing.

The train banks left, wrapping itself along the horizon. A strange and silent thought approaches and Bolfo stops tapping: has this train been traveling in circles?