The Joke & The Jester

I am told I may say anything.

That is the first joke, and the audience

knows it, which is why they laugh

before I open my mouth.

The king keeps me the way a man keeps

a mirror he has learned to squint at.

I sleep closer to the throne

than the generals do because

they might one day want it themselves,

and I supposedly want for nothing.

This is also a joke.

What I want is to live long enough

to say the next thing. I want

for the word tyrant to land

inside the laugh, where the guards cannot

reach in to pull it out without pulling

out the laugh too, and the king

will not allow his own

laughter to be confiscated.

Vanity is the unlocked window

at the back of every fortress.

You don’t say the emperor is naked,

you praise the tailor

for being brave, and you look directly

at the emperor as he laughs

because he has not yet understood.

By the time he does,

the whole court is laughing

with a sound that has teeth

in it, and he cannot tell

which of us is biting.

You do not say they are coming

for us, you say they have always

been coming, and look

how slow they are, look how

they trip on their own flags,

look how the boot is on

the wrong foot again, sire, shall I help?

Sometimes the king laughs, and

sometimes the king goes very quiet.

The room goes quiet with him.

In those moments, I bow lower than

necessary, and I produce a smaller joke,

a kinder one, a decoy,

and the king takes it like a treat

from my hand, and he forgets

for a moment, he was deciding 

whether to have me killed.