Making Faces (Poetry)

I have done the daughter-face to death —
no more the dutiful, tongue-biting compromiser
so careful with other’s wants and needs
yet never getting it right, it seems —
trying to fit the photofit of a person
too unlikely to be real.

A mother’s makeup has to be entirely waterproof
and more than a sweet smile
smeared from lip to infant cheek —
all children eventually see through it —
the act bores them and after a while
they drift — indifferent — sleepwalk away.

Love invents theatrical disguise —
the two-faced mask of joy and tragedy
that lovers swap around throughout the play
gaudy in their greasepaint interpretations
until they’re not sure who they are
or want to be.

The aging wife-face hides successive blemishes quite well —
settles for mature — a plumped-up image
kept supple in an unobtrusive jar
that claims to take the epidermal layers back
ten years — renew and save —
while youth heckles from afar.

The true-face is the one nobody sees —
even the mirror would glance away
out of kindness or simple self-preservation —
the cracks in flesh and silvered glass
reflecting back and forth —
barely holding together.