The Perfect Mask

the perfect mask easily covers my hands
those withered digits on the floor of numbered days
that pick me up as I head
for the door
once they were the size of silver dollars
made for making change
they were gloved with veils
like those over my eyes
and a hairstyle that spoke softly
of an unborn elegance
bones were blooming in a mirrored stare
here and there
I saw a lake beneath the mirror’s surface
and a window
hung up in a net of blue veins
I opened that sigh that bridge by the water
for the words
daybreak
nightfall
and the refund in scarlet fairytales
in dreams I could fly
by day I forced the sugar past my lips
with a happy sign held high
above my head
the night’s little arc made huge
by dawn even with the one way sign
on the one street
where the messenger
number 2
or ten thousand said
there was no one who wasn’t nobody
as if somebody could be
I argued with pain in the empty park
sleeping under yesterday’s news
but nothing gorgeous was hunting me it was winter
it was always winter one way or another
dazzle me said the oldest eyes imaginable
I dare you
unleaven another empty century of its solitude
what won’t you do?
what haven’t you done
with the doll and the gun?
under the face shell in the afterglow?