Older and in costume
I parade up and down because I know
this will make a difference

in how I feel about
how I am seen from here on in.
It’s possible that no one

will see me anyway
no matter how I am 
dressed or arrayed

but as a slowly vanishing
man, I must take
all the chance I can to be 

visible. Even if no one
notices, I notice. Even
if I am ridiculous,

I shall vibrate inside
knowing I chose such
silliness. Even if I 

were to in fact 
disappear from here
leaving the costume 

empty in the aisle
before all present,
I will go knowing

I took this chance to
feel alive, saturated
with nonsense, joyful

as a true clown,
unafraid, saying to all:
This.  I am this

as much as I am anything
else you know of me and
it’s as much a part of me

as what you’ve always 
known, even if you have not
seen it till now. I am this

and that too. While I do not 
and have never contained
multitudes, I was more

than you knew and even
more than I knew. Older and in 
costume, I can see that now.

Make a muscle,
some uncle would say,
and you’d pop up an arm,
pump up a bicep for them
to squeeze.  Big boy, getting
stronger, they’d say.
You would be pleased and 
secretly you’d do this to yourself
whenever you could — cock that 
arm like Popeye and test the
rock under the skin.

There were times
where you’d work at getting huge
but then came all that pubescence and
things started happening in your head,
voices about how poorly your muscles
did in most things, urgings to stay
small before the bully radar,

and nothing happened with that
muscle plan.  You got thick and dull
and became more head-strong
and less body strong
and compensated with weapons
and wit for long decades to follow

and now you’re nearly sixty
and if you make a muscle in
your stroke arm, only you will know;
if you make a muscle
in your stronger arm, it would show
but not much. 

You’re nearly sixty
and if you make a muscle in public
someone may laugh at you,
perhaps with fondness,
perhaps not.  Big boy, you’re still
so strong, someone might say,
and it will remind you
that all your beloved uncles
are long underground.

In secret you roll up a sleeve.
You’re fourteen again but
there are no bullies left
except the mirror
so you make a muscle
and whisper see, see?
See how big I am getting?  

Because I did not expect 
to live this long,
I have over the years
sold and tossed 
and given away
many things I loved, telling myself
that doing so 

was a way of ensuring
that I might be of some use
as a conduit for certain cherished things
to end up in righteous
and deserving hands. 

Then I did live this long,
far beyond expectation,
and now my hands 
are as empty as I am.

This is not a song of mourning,
not a self-pity song;
this is how we face the stripping away
of illusion at the close of day,
how we sunset when it’s time for dusk.

In the early days of knowing
I would not live long, I was free
and giddy as I shed
guitars and clothes and hats
and all those hours
of recorded music, all those
books, all those things
I’d loved, saying they were in me
now and no one could take them
from me.

Then I lived long
and now I am as empty as my hands;
so much sucked away, so much
drained from me by rough use
and diminishing returns. 

This is not a song of mourning,
not a self-pity song.
This is how we close our eyes
and see how hard the truth is,
how at once loaded and light it is.

What am I supposed to do now 
in such an empty space
if I want to stop existing at last?
Stick this truth in my mouth
and pull on some bitter little fact
like a trigger? 

Not at all: I’m going to sit here

with my empty hands
outstretched and see what,
if anything, falls into them
from above. Wait for the void
to take effect. See if my
remaining possessions 
flee me screaming,
leave quietly, or are taken
one by one into the light.