One quickly learns to fall and roll,
(The pratfall is his stock in trade)
But hard surfaces take their toll,
Although the fall’s expertly played.
He’s just the universe’s tool
Grinning though his blood may boil
A well-placed and convenient fool
(The harlequin’s the perfect foil.)
The passing years have not been kind
(His back is shot, his knees are spent)
But still he keeps the thought in mind
That other wounds are permanent
(He may never bring the house down,
But no one persecutes a clown.)

i.

I remember, when I was a much younger girl,
How my grandfather would hold a kopek in his hand
And, making it flutter slowly as if it were in flight
Would pantomime dropping it into a small sack,
Kicking a horseshoe or barrel stave against a rock
To approximate the sound of the coin hitting the sack,
Surreptitiously nudging the bottom of the canvas
To accentuate the deception.
We knew, of course, that it was mere sleight-of-hand
(Indeed, as he grew older and we less credulous,
It was fairly easy to pick up at what point
The small, tarnished piece was actually palmed),
But it was Grandfather, after all, and besides,
The invention was much more pleasant than the reality.

ii.

We were, naturally, prepared to die;
Indeed, if you wear a belt of explosives,
You prefer not to consider other outcomes.
It did not come to pass; there are, sadly, always spies,
Provocateurs who prefer pennies over principles,
And so I have come to this fortress to await my pas de deux
With the roughness of the rope and the kick of the lever.

But there shall be no death.

No death? they shall say, Surely the gravity of your plight,
The strain of isolation has caused you to take leave of your senses,
But I am as clear and constant
As the bells in the guard tower
Which toll on the quarter hour.

Ah, but here is the judge,
Great eyebrows knit, jaw tight,
Reading, measured in tone and pace, from the paper
Which outlines the finality of your sentence,
And I say it is no more than mere parchment,
His words the empty fulminations
Of an unconnected party.

But see here, Musechka, they will insinuate slyly,
What of this image--the eyes bulging,
The face distorted and blue, the tongue blackened,
And I respond that such a depiction,
Along with all prior inquiries and protests,
Are from without and, as such,
No concern of mine.

iii.

When, come sunup the day after tomorrow,
It is time for the law and justice
To finish going through the requisite motions,
I shall walk to the platform
Burdened with neither regret
Nor any notion of dying well
(Such thoughts are for priests, foppish cavalry officers)
And the soldiers that cut me down
Shall, I am sure, will be somewhat irritated with me
For they shall have seen I have, in a sense,
Engineered my own exit,
And that it was a trick
Which they played no part in contriving.