False Face Must Hide
When truths have been on the slide
for some years, false face
must hide.
It hides in words,
conceals in deeds,
attending to its every
need and sees
no gaudy costume jewels
hanging here
from headscarves, no dusky
promises,
but a caravan two weeks
stuck travelling
hopeless in thick spun mud.
It’s famished and never diminished,
bigger, if anything, and
never finished
with its callings and its
wantings,
its hauntings brief and
lengthy tauntings.
Those weeds that spring
like crowns
on lawns, hiding when
grass is cut flat,
reappear in thick ropes to
push back,
possessed of grisly
purpled thistled teeth,
think covered pits, think palm
leaves,
think plummeting through
trap doors.
Here’s a suitcase’s wide opened
jaws
an overstuffed crocodile,
in tough cloth.
Who knows what they make
these of?
Nevertheless, it does the
job. Push it in,
to the brim, make fat what
once was thin.
Birds of a mind look
south, fly west or east
to guaranteed warmth, dry
feathers in heat,
fill beaks with only what
they need to eat
and nest within the other
in peace.
It will out in the end, these
things do
dare speak their name and tell
not show
truths that my false heart
does know.
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