There’s no fool like an old fool. Does
that mean that for the young, foolishness
is a disguise, donned like a pair of gloves
meant to conceal motive and skin? In a sense
to laugh is to dissemble, rather than
to feel something real, to feel the fool
as when we inhabit the mirth. A span
of breath expelled, the inhale that fills
the lungs again with deceit. A man
walks into a bar and asks, Where’s
the bar tender? Wait. Not a man,
a termite. No point in ducking, there’s
a punch line coming. These days I try
to be the fool, the laugh that’s not a lie.
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