Biography of a Mask
Published in The Poet's Domain, 1999 Edition
Copyright © 1999, 2005
Jason Lester Atkins
985 Fleet Drive, #347
Virginia Beach, VA 23454
All Rights Reserved.
I put on a brand new mask
when I learned my first love story,
saw the first colors of my desire,
saw a vision of your body through
a glass of red dinner wine,
saw my first atlas of a different
world, when I began to love two
women in this same wonderful world,
when I first knew the human shape
is a monkey's ghost: a mask hides
this monkey face, when Priests chant
ancient myths of man's first garden:
mask needed to hide my pious face
of mortal fear at my father's death-bed:
I adorn my mask when I hear
the agony of Angels of the Holocaust:
masks are my selected shape shifters, allowing
me to walk among my fellow scene-stealers:
thank you Mr. Ammons, for lending your
clothes line to hang my mask upon . . .
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