I Don't Wear a Mask

[rowens]

 

           I Don't Wear a Mask 


If I'm a shell for mocking, do it yourself,
don't leave it to the boys, by flipping me to another line;
the tears are inside tears, pay your young attention
to my face's lines, they move outward, a smile
that walks to you. Valleys of sweat for all the miles.

I come to you dancing. I didn't expect to come so soon.
It was a chance stop, while riding with a friend;
I just had to see if you were still there.—Show, darkly,
I care. Silence is an enema in me. You

are like a cherry, that puts my bowels over the edge;
the nearest restrooms in a time of Cholera might be the lions' den.
The crows' banquet. Me and my double have a battle and
run and hide from the unknown, anxious wondering, and
find a silly girl,—though she make of me a stew.

Are we going to spend our hard-won days in isolation,
or from the apple-tree in my own mind
does the rattle and the babe, and the big bird fly,
and I see you standing there, like a waitress with one table?

[dukealien]

This very nearly brought tears, presumably of sympathy. There are some rough spots, surely intentional.

The final simile is almost too good. Almost.

Thanks for sharing that.

[rowens]

The grammar is in its own world. If you consider what turtle is slang for, and what Alice tried to recite to the Mock Turtle, and a couple other folks she found, and a few obscure allusions to my own poems, life isn't so rough.