this infection

Every day I watch the same man kill himself
over and over and over again.

A flash of light shrieks over the stage.
He has left with the sounds of a car.

His family stays.
There is no one downstage

and he bounds toward me,
a grin on his face.
I, too, would take a pride
in such a performance.
I, too, would do the same

but it is hard to match him
with the man i just saw,
broken with time and age.

Makeup has made him look
that way. I watch him get ready
each day

but he is not the same man
that he is onstage. Still, it's hard
to tell thenm apart, although they
walk and they talk and they move
in different ways.

Every day I watch him onstage
and every day it's the same. He kills himself
over and over again.