Deception
By Gene Aronowitz
Inside a New York City Subway Station,
a pale, old, frail, woman
extended her cupped-hand, chanting
a plaintive plea: “Please care,
please care, please care.”
I passed her by, thinking her
a charlatan like the woman
I had just seen walk into a restroom
dressed only in a garbage bag,
then emerge wearing
wonderful garb and a self-satisfied
smile, signifying a successful day
of panhandling.
But, really, who am I
to judge? True, I never wore
a garbage bag to work,
but always donned an appropriate
costume for each role,
not very unusual, since
only the brave and the misbehaved
ignore dress codes. But even
out of work, my performance was pretty
much a pretense, always projecting
whatever my preferred and practiced persona,
was at the time: a swaggering jock
in high school;
a take-no-prisoners personality
when a Marine;
an express every feeling character
when encounter groups were the thing;
and very unequivocal when I
fancied myself a radical.
And then, at fifty, I adopted a calm façade,
comforting and non-threatening
to the observer but, only now,
in my eighties, approaching
authenticity.
