Face Living

Living with the face we get

starts with amoretto cheeks

beneath storybook eyes,

silken strands draped across the brow,

curious noses,

innocent lips.

Upon canvases so pure

strokes the brush of time,

dips into the palette of certainty

layering change upon change.

Color changes,

some remaining untainted,

others of sun’s burnt-orange delusion.

Drying.

Cracking.

Flaking.

What say you of your face?

One’s personal artwork

eventually retires to Life’s attic

propped up on memory’s walls that house the past,

when faces didn’t rely on mirrors,

expressions were for their own sake,

not the nip and tuck masks of today

reserved for make-believe reality.

To look in the mirror today,

is to accept or reject face living’s reality,

and then…