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+---
+title: Ronald McDonald
+id: ronaldmcdonald
+genre: verse
+
+project:
+    title: Elegies for alternate selves
+    class: elegies
+    order: 17
+    prev:
+    - title: Rough gloves
+      link: roughgloves
+    next:
+    - title: The moon is gone and in its place a mirror
+      link: moongone
+...
+
+When Ronald McDonald takes off his [striped shirt][], \
+his coveralls, his painted face: when he no longer looks \
+like anyone or anything special, sitting next to women
+
+in bars or standing in the aisle at the grocery, \
+is he no longer Ronald?  Is he no longer happy to kick \
+a soccer ball around with the kids in the park,
+
+is he suddenly unable to enjoy the french fries \
+he gets for his fifty percent off?  I'd like to think \
+that he takes Ronald off like a shirt, hangs him
+
+in a closet where he breathes darkly in the musk.  \
+I'd like to believe that we are able to slough off selves \
+like old skin and still retain some base self.
+
+Of course we all know this is not what happens.  \
+The Ronald leering at women drunkenly is the same who \
+the next day kicks at a ball the size of a head.
+
+He is the same that hugs his children at night, \
+who has sex with his wife on the weekends when they're \
+not so tired to make it work, who smiles holding
+
+a basket of fries in front of a field.  He cannot \
+take off the facepaint or the [yellow gloves][].  They are \
+stuck to him like so many feathers with the tar
+
+of his everyday associations.  His plight is that \
+of everyone's---we are what we do who we are.
+
+[striped shirt]: theoceanoverflowswithcamels.html
+[yellow gloves]: roughgloves.html