A Few Encounters with My Face

1

Who is that moonlit stranger staring at me
through the fog of a bathroom mirror

2

Wrinkles form a parenthesis around the eyes
dry wells of sadness at three a.m.

3

The forehead furrows in a scowl
a question mark puzzled since childhood

4

Faint scrawl of chicken pox and measles
broken asthma nights breathing steam

5

Hair thinning like his grandfather's
all those bald ancestral thoughts

6

The nose a ram's horn a scroll
as long and bumpy as the centuries

7

Greed of a Latvian horse thief
surprised by the lights

8
Primitive double chin divided in two
a mother and father divorcing

9
Deep red pouches and black bags
a life given to sleeplessness

10
Earnest grooves ironic blotches secret scars
memories medallions of middle age

11
It would take a Cubist to paint
this dark face splitting in three directions

12

Identify these features with rapture and despair
one part hilarity two parts grief