Faces Without Choice

Making 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,

dipped into the palette of reality,

layering change upon change.

Colors…

Some untainted.

Others muddy.

Drying.

Cracking.

Flaking.

What of these faces

without choice.

One’s personal artwork

now retired to Life’s attic,

propped up on memory’s walls that shelter what was,

when faces knew fewer mirrors,

expressions were for their own sake,

and manufactured masks were only reserved for Halloween.

Mirror, mirror,

on the wall…