Masks

Prompt from Sunday Scribblings:

Masks. Literal: making or wearing masks for Halloween, Carnival, Mardi Gras, the theater, any other masky occasion. Or, you know, psychological: a mask you wear, that you hide behind; the face you present the world, or that you present just to one person. Happy scribbles!

M. asks
crazy but wily Marianne
who says she knows such sadness
behind masks,
the perfect housewife, for example,
the perfect mother,
she cannot run far enough
when she gets that queasy feeling
around the kidneys
that somebody’s tailoring a mask for her

M. answers
NO MORE MASKS
I’m sick of hiding
It’s tough enough coming into myself

Pipes in cheerful Maurice,
who just the other day
first wore his ski mask,
then his diving mask
and finally his chameleon mask at a party

Why wear that last one?
M. asks
You are a chameleon in real life,
take on whatever color surrounds you,
reflect any mood,
mold yourself to anything

Why not?
says Maurice,
masks are perfect mirrors
of whatever’s going on
at the time

And that can never be avoided

I am a permanent mask,
perfect incarnation of circumstance and time

– Leon Blumfeld (© 2007)