My Best Face

My Best Face


A Face, just for you.
This one wasn't made in my mother's womb
It was built instead, by tides of life
the way banks of silt and sand are made
at the end of a lonely beach.
It's a soft-cushion face
Absorbs all dismantling
yet stays in shape.
This face is a face saver -
Roses without thorns
A sponge full of water
A poor little squirrel face
hoarding tears for later
A square of neat satin covering wounds
Unfit for being looked at in the mirror though
for the mirror reflects flesh,
shows nothing of the soul.


Unable to look at my face
I stumble over its alien floor
Slip on all the marble
Skid on cold granite.
How many dawns has this been in making?
How many rice fields in ripening?
How many rivers in damming?
My voyage ends on these cheekbones.
My wretched hands cannot rub warmth in this taut space.


The face chips a little
before my son's searching gaze;
he who lives amidst defeats
who says yes to all no s.
He is curious about the mask his mother wears Even to bed.
He's scared of what he'll find if it comes off, I know
Scared to discover if the woman inside his mother is still alive.
He doesn't know yet, how easily a woman dies
to keep her role alive.
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