While Walking Downtown with My Daughter

Across the street, a block away, a man
dressed as a clown trudges to the back
of a plain gray sedan and pops the trunk.
He pulls his yellow wig off of his nearly
bald head and packs it carefully away,
then his bright nose-ball with both hands.
then his candy red jacket with gold trim,
folded and lowered gently into the trunk.
By the time we cross the street, he’s standing
in a yellow shirt and jeans, a short man,
a little overweight. He looks nervous.
But just as we are about to pass behind
the church at the corner, he raises his round,
white painted face to us, lifts his hand
off of the trunk to wave and starts a smile,
just as we disappear behind the church,
that looked like it was going to keep spreading
off of his face and fall like some magical
crescent moon into the trunk of his car.