About pitfalls and a clown

For Kitty

Because he is your clown,
he can go wherever you go.
Because of pitfalls, mothers,
and subversions generally,
I got him with no hesitation.
He has no power over pitfalls,
nothing as miraculous as that.
You’ll go on falling into them
the way we all do, but pitfalls
are miserable places in which
to find oneself, and we fall
into awful ones—taking ourselves
too seriously, falling in love,
running out of money, having to
break promises, having to make them
in the first place. You have a passing
acquaintance with what I am running
on about, so when I saw your Clown,
I said to myself, “He’ll be a comfort
to Kitty at the bottom of some pit.”