Excuse me ma'am, behind you

Not only am I old
                             grown older
hunched over
             I'm ma'am
listing like an old ship
on ches'peake's bay
to be scuttled and shunted
& packed tightly
bonded
             removed for food
see my beard?
      what does that say?
any way?
       nothing I figure
just hair
                I move
I'll make way
I'm excused
I'm mis-id-ed
                       left rotten
on the booth
               bar stool
ambiguously
           I'm in the way

No One Suspects

Each morning
I slip into myself,
down beneath the
fragile pink skin
where I find pulsing
blue veins warm
and sinewy, muccus
smells and musty
aching flesh, muscle
membrane, thick
oozing blood, stench
like iron and sweat,
each morning I
operate the periscope
eyes, hit ignition,
watch myself go,
I am disembodied
moving within,
sounds and voices
are muffled and funneled
through listening devices
positioned on the head,
I turn toward BANG
and CRASH and
SIZZLE I pass all
the time each morning
move about through
the air and water world
protected, offer the
standard response, wait
and repeat, I cover my
scratches in gold and
fabric, touch sensors
dilineate smooth and
rough and silk, legs
arch and bend and turn,
each morning I
pilot this hulking mass
falling into itself
crushing meat and bone,
consume the capsules
of other souls, shifting
eyes, I speak in code
seeking others like myself.