The Faces

I

Inside me, squeezing hard against the light,

I see the faces that have been close to me.

u

One, light-skinned, with pain inside her voice.

Her body leaps away from her

Onto the canvas: angry shapes,

Shadows of the fear she mends with cold

Innocent color.

m

Those unhurried cheeks; the grandmother

Bending over me with her fierce eyes

And her tenderness, like a wrinkled moon.

The years turn back inside her hands,

More fluent than voices.

IV

The next face comes too close to me to be seen:

Brief sparks from the fire, ends of the burnt

Wood inside her, and something she has known,

A thousand painful days wrapped in her smile.

v

But now I see the closed face of my father.

A pool of clear water sparkles near him.

I run my hands over the cold veil,

Unable to drink.