MASKS

My sister’s mask was prettier than mine,
blond curls and dimples, a straw bonnet with
ribbons and fabric flowers, pink and blue.

My friend at school, too. Her mask had laughter
and smiles, held stories of a make-believe
family playing string chamber music

in the living room after a dinner
of canned green beans on toast or sandwiches
where no one worried about how much jam

or peanutbutter you used, and parents
who "napped" on the weekends for happiness.

The neighbor boy’s mask was supposed to make
him look like a warrior or hero,
but he couldn’t pull it off, the bully.

I knew my mask wasn’t working quite right
because all the teachers kept on talking
to my mom, asking me to repair it.

I kept stitching new smiles onto my face
and checking them in the mirror. Smile. Not smile.
Smile. Not smile. There weren’t remote controls yet,

so these were manually operated,
and one got stuck in the smile position.

That was fine most of the time, but one day
a teacher bumped into me, knocking down
my books and papers all over the stairs.

I was crying but couldn’t stop smiling,
so he couldn’t see it, and he just laughed,
and told me what a good girl I must be.

STRAWBERRY MOON

When the news said tonight was the full moon,
the strawberry moon, I thought it was
some sort of metaphor, not that the moon
would glow a pinkish-gold over black trees
in a night thick with the scents of flowers,
rabbits like statues under dark bushes,
quick deer hooves clattering under streetlights.

When we prayed for gun safety, I didn’t
realize how the memories would rise
of all the survivors tracking the cracks
spidering towards them from those old impacts,
waiting helplessly for glass to shatter.
I almost forgot that years ago this
was the day you surgically removed

yourself from this realm in favor of that,
a kind of cesarean section, when
everything was too full or empty of
everything else, when the edges were plump
and raw. You swore there was nothing like God,
and I swear I glimpsed you climbing up stairs
made of glass floating in the infinite.