In the Skins

This is no game, with a ribbon

For guessing what person

Smiles from behind the mask--

Lawyer, doctor, minister, saint.

The truth is easier than that.

Were we only one actor

With one metered act, pacing

Through one measured play,

Our days would be coddled,

Our nights rehearsed, doled out

Inevitably, at a passionless rate.

But happily, we do not choose

A solitary role, do not memorize

A set of well-written lines.

Existence is branded by a coarse

Ménage. And these parts

Are not a deck of cards available

To neatly draw, but they shuffle

Carelessly from one suit to next

With unintelligible rapidity.

We are friend, saint, salesman

Flashing an identity only so long

As it flashes, for these aspects

Are summoned not from some

Arcane catalog. They float

To the murky surface, only to

Mystify and disappear again.

Thus, when we fall in love

With hints and riddles, the mystery

Is not one of the beatitude of love,

But of love's capacity to tolerate 

Foolishness and wondrousness and tears.

Love loves similitude, but

It must not run from fear.

The heart believes it must endure,

Unchanging in its face,

But which of us would choose

To live in such enslaving space?

What lover, knowing her own

Mistake would not be drawn to grief?

What saint would choose to turn, to spurn

The pleas of a prodigal thief?

EJR