The Death of Ian Incognito
The world a stage,
Shakespeare noted.
And we the imposter,
in our final call.
A few catch our last show.
Unwitting, they s on cue,
our fatal prelude,
our convulsive caricature,
our final self-deprecation.
A clown milking our last mockery,
our closing burlesque pratfall,
our irrevocable tremor,
our departure in floodlights.
The guffaws intend no harm.
No one knows our real name.
We are just the familiar disguise
of impulsive chuckles.
Yes, the stage is our world,
where we regale in our farcical regalia,
where we playact the death we die,
defined abruptly only by the privation of others,
their season of grieving like elephants.
Perhaps it’s better this way,
decomposing, never to be recovered,
just the sound of laughter lost,
or the fading fragment in someone’s
sleepless night.
Published The Magnolia Review 03/2020
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