Buzzing by Flavia Testa

Face

“The soul, which is spirit , cannot dwell in dust; it is carried along to dwell in blood.”
St. Augustine, The Confessions

My figment, my flirt, my false friend,
who do you favour? What’s your fee? You can depend
on craters and valleys and friction
to warn — you will not be able to flaunt your fiction
forever. You are mine. Though you and I
have different views and count different lines with sly
and varying perspectives. I no longer know when the race
began or why I culled what I culled and left so much to waste,
my colourful, wilting mourning glory. When you stop guarding
your story what will you regard? See what comes of hoarding.
Close your eyes for an instant in the fermenting fields of the South
and railroad tracks stream down the sides of your mouth.
Still, don’t the lines that brace your eyes when you smile proclaim, not grace
exactly as the train speeds, but a moment of no death in the face of the face.

“Face” read by Carole Glasser Langille