You touched your cheek to mine
your skin
your mask
my mask
my skin
My heart fluttered
You touched your cheek to mine
your skin
your mask
my mask
my skin
My heart fluttered
mask stretched up to cover his eyes
he is out of this world
and others
seeing and hearing and dreaming no evil
some hide smiles
some hide eyes
many tiny invisible lies
your mask hides your smile
but still how I’m struck
to see your eyes laughing
It had been a while that people had been covering their faces through fear, fear of the new, fear of the unexpected, fear of the consequences. But soon Julie was going to react, to rebel against the blankness.
The noise in her head was of late spring orchids, dried to straw by summer, rustling and whispering underfoot as she walked through the field, up the slope to the cliff top.
She would go to the city and get on the underground train. She’d sit down quietly. The voices would whisper through the static, some inside her head, some inside others’.
She’d sit down quietly then as quietly stand up and take her mask off to show her empty face, the space where her nose had been, and her teeth.