LETTER TO ZEEZO

I think that you must've
been ill that day,
irritable bowel, perhaps,
or one of those sudden moments
that life throws up
to make one furious at the world
as when, while chewing on a piece
of Dentyne from which the flavor
has long fled
you bite down on your tongue
(swollen from the long night
inhaling pot smoke (on purpose)
from a bong shaped like an elephant),
Zeezo, but
it was not all that admirable
the way that you shrieked
“GET OUT!”
in that creepy high-pitched
voice of yours
into the ears of my brother, then ten,
and me, seven years younger,
as we struggled to extract
our tangled legs from
the ridiculously cramped area
under the fake dashboard
of your teeny tiny red and yellow clown car
after our ride
around the edge of the new supermarket's
crowded parking lot.

It served to initiate my lifelong
fear of clowns, and my brother
and I
were not particularly close
for many years thereafter.

JD Frey -- October 18, 2005