Ghost-white death-mask
(whispering muse)
Something whispers,
certainly not nothing.
A subtle impetus
to choose
to stir and rise
to place myself
before another gaping canvas,
the ghost-white of a death-mask.
She is my mistress,
I dare not disobey.
I know by now
she must have her way.
So I go,
because to not go
is to become
that ghost-white death-mask.
Or perhaps the truth is this....
I am that mask
and this devoted service
offered at the altar
of my mistress,
is the alchemy required
that I might return to life and living.
Who knows ?
It seems not to matter.
Only this,
my mistress,
when she beckons,
I must go and gaze into
that ghost-white death-mask
as she gazes into me.
And what follows
is not for me to know,
only just to follow
where my mistress
bids me go.
(2013)
