Life Mask

I held a piece of her face in my hand,

It was white and jagged and the skin

Was as course as the stucco walls

In Honolulu where our love was firmed

Under the incessant sun.

Yet, as far as it was from reality,

This cast born plaster held something

My fingers could not detect

In their blind search over those

Dry lips and the sharp edges.

(Yet, as far as it was from reality,

This cast born plaster held something

My fingers could not detect in their blind

Search over those dry lips

And the sharp edges of her brow.)

My eyes could see the familiar

Curve of her cheek and the angle

Of her nose sloping as softly

As the gentlest cliffs drifting

Down the Pali in Windward Oahu

And the fragment retained the left eye,

Even to the brush of her eyelashes,

Closed as the plaster poured over her,

Like the memories of the first years

Of our marriage in Hawaii pour over me.