The True Mask Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

The light-splashed
beam from Sirius
on cheeks whirling

in thick feathers
of blooming night,
as a whorl spindle
of blush thread unfolds

to plaster the furrow
of a cobra arching
with an elastic curve
to strike straight

with a raised height,
a hill on a head
lowered to a lever

for a catapulted dive,
the trailing
curve of a hanging

smile crawling up
the mulch of a cheek
breeding snakes
and stars of hemlock

twinkling from
a temple's sky
down the widening valley.

(ii)

Look, the dimple
of that smirk and chortle
harbors the bright

crab grabbed from
a silver pool
of silver water in a creek

making the mouth
water for a lick
that grows
into a scorpion's fingers

hugging worms to deliver
a cutting and roasting
"and-so-what? ",

the blade cuts of a tongue
for flower-
and bird-tossing laugh.

(iii)

Flashy and bouncing
cotton moons
drop from the forehead
down to a philtrum's
lengthened trench

burning with the crackling
curly giggle
traversing bridges
over sprawling marshes,

mambas sticking out
ignited heads
of popping flames

from a fire too hot
to be butchered
with a sun-sprayed grin
from heart's hearth.

Beware of the smile
that grows grassy

with curves wriggling
out of the ditch
of a smile's unstained mask,

blades of snakes
sticking out emerald forks
on a lawn
of a thousand curves

waving ribbons
of a smile for a cosmetic face.