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---
title: 'Ronald McDonald'
project: 'Elegies for Alternate Selves'
...
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.
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