Figuring Out A Face Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The moon shone like splashes
of light from a comet
shaded by a dimming glass showering
guests with sunlight at night.

Each of the dudes at the party wore
a chiffon and cotton voile nylon spinning
many silhouettes of the same dude,

as they trudged through for food
and drinks. And ambled about with glowing wings.

It took me a sturdy walking cane
and a tall ladder
to climb to your face mask and scale down
its steps to digest who stood behind it.

It took me a loupe and a magnifier
to dig into your mask's contours
with my eyes, as I could hardly make you out.

It took a spade and a hoe
to scrape off fog to reach the aquifer
carrying the still water surface
of your glistening face,

streams of silver woolly sweat
having knitted herringbone
and basket weaves down your cheeks.

Under the sparkling sky of the moon-lit party,
it took me a heavy chisel to unveil
and sculpt out the edges

of the flashy hood you'd
pulled deep down your face, which lay
in a deep fog, your figure lost behind a nimbus.

(ii)

But after you'd removed the hood,
a different dude having sat
on your pasted peeling flying-off face,

I saw you grab every pore and curve
of the glow that had smoothed
your look into a large oval egg, growing
into a plaice and back to an egg again.

Never had I seen you
wearing such different faces.
But of all the faces you wore slashed me
with a bull dog's wrinkles

brushing and scraping me
as if for a bite.

I bounced off your egg face,
poking it with a banter
that trotted and sneaked through
with a friendly mewling cat's paws

The jest came close to hatching
your egg face
into the peeping chick
of a grin-engined laugh to illuminate

a nimbus cloud night,
as guests thumped with the shifted gear
of a hubbub and the roar that devoured
and brought the party to a close.