blob: a719ef8e06beab66a769f59cff2bb719c8b3e2a7 (
plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
|
---
title: Ronald McDonald
genre: verse
project:
title: Elegies for alternate selves
css: 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
|
