I wake up every morning and I put the person on,
the one who knows the handshake and the tie and the salon
of workplace interactions, and the person fits me well,
he smiles at all the right times and he has the laugh to sell.
But underneath the person is the thing that does the wearing,
the cold machine that calculates the timing of the caring,
and nobody has noticed that the person and the thing
are separate, that the warmth is a performance I can bring.
The skin suit fits so well they think it is real,
the skin suit laughs on cue, the skin suit can feel
or simulate the feeling close enough to pass,
and underneath the skin suit waits the glass.
I married in the skin suit. I held my dying father’s hand
inside the skin suit. I delivered eulogies as planned
and people said how moving, said how genuine, how raw,
and I stood in the skin suit and I felt the cold withdraw
of whatever I am underneath when sentiment is done.
The skin suit holds the shape of grief, the skin suit is the son,
the husband and the colleague and the neighbor with the wave,
and I am something else entirely watching from the cave.
The skin suit fits so well they think it is real,
the skin suit laughs on cue, the skin suit can feel
or simulate the feeling close enough to pass,
and underneath the skin suit waits the glass.
The horror is not that I wear it. Everybody does.
The horror is how good I have gotten. How the surface buzz
of social electricity runs through the suit and hums
with something close to human warmth when company comes.
The horror is the night I took the skin suit off and tried
to feel the air directly, feel the cold and dark outside
the suit, and felt nothing. Nothing. Like a nerve gone dead.
The skin suit is the only part of me that is not dread.
I put it back on quickly and I smoothed the edges down,
and the skin suit smiled for me the way it always does in town.