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.