My Faces.

My Faces.

All I remember is the flash
like a camera that stole my smile away,
that and the rest of my face,
the last thing I saw or will see.

They fixed all the holes,
plugged them up with scars, now
I'm told I'm a skull wearing skin,
and when I'm taken in public
my family tells me I'm a terror;
some nightmare who's roaming the streets.
My daughter can't comprehend
why my lips have no replacement
or why my eye sockets show skin
stretched like canvas to prevent germs getting in.

My heart beats, but shamefully,
and aches with the pain I've caused
those so close to me.

Now they say they'll transplant
my face for another, says the doctor
averting his eyes, so I'm told,
From some stranger whose passing away.
Tomorrow if I wake up, will my face be a neighbor's?
Will my family see through my facade?
Will this smile be wry?
Will these lips finally find the expectant lips of my wife
or will this stranger mask turn her away?

Insomnia

Every night somewhere it's three in the morning,
and someone's not sleeping 'cause sleeping's boring,
and with twiddling thumbs they count as imaginary sheep leap
and wonder if it's worth it to try to fall back sleep or just get up.
How many sheep before enough is enough?
Plus they can't stop thinking about the bills.
Plus they can't stop thinking about the chills.
They can't stop thinking about how much
they're worried about tomorrow
and if they had to, where they could beg and borrow.

For a few seconds...

For the next few seconds
forget.
Remember when remembering
soaked through like sun through
venetian blinds and striped our carpet
with warm and cold, light and night,
and all of that
kept us rapt
and we forgot
to look ahead instead of back,
and we crashed,
so for the next few seconds,
forget.

On the Way Home from Drew and Bethany's Wedding

A long ride in a car.
Music pumping like blood, gasoline like adrenaline.
Raindrops not cleansing but spreading yellow
mud of pollen about the windshield.
The velocity on 64 seperates each drop into a distinct "tick"
but as the volume of rain increases,
the sound turns from "tick" to "Ssthack"
to a thick, mid-pitch "shhhshh."
Pollen puddles collide and disperse up the windshield,
to its corners and out into the wind
that seems to send the rain sideways past the speeding car.
Let's just keep this up.

Cornerstone

There is but one brick we build upon
There is but one house we're safe within
And the wind, and the wind
Cannot find its way in,
No, the wind cannot find its way in.
There is but one we will call I Am.
There is but one rock upon which we stand
There is but one reason for our love,
And there's but one armor we can trust.
And Satan, and Satan
Cannot find his way in
No, Satan cannot find his way in

Jesus Christ, cornerstone,
In your love, we find our home
Cornerstone, Jesus Christ
Your empty grave, it promises life.

Smile-Face Pictures

The pictures from those days hang crooked
on the wall before the stairs, all smiles,
all oblivious to the paychecks that didn't pay,
the night after night with heartburn and lying awake.
Their dusty frames and glass contain momentary joy
that sometimes stretched like a rubberband across days
or weeks, but sometimes snapped and slapped back,
cracking like a cup and spilling it like a sink.

And now it seems we don't take any more pictures
and I wonder if we still have momentary joys or
are we jaded like jewelery from China?
I don't know, but on the stairs, I remember.

Winter Decisions

Do I write patterns or do they write me?
Pens leaking ink on my chest in circles,
arcs and angles, like a labyrinth, I move
according to the will of dead-end streets,
one-way signs, road construction and whispers.
God knows my patterns shift to the music.

And we find ourselves in my car, music
playing top forty when you look at me
Eyes, planets that plead we speak in whispers.
We've spent since March circumscribing circles,
sketching our rules made on walks through old streets,
and finally, silently, I will move.

The patterns we've sewn say "Make the damn move!
Stop looking for stop signs in the music!
Kiss for God's sake in the lights of these streets."
"Fredericksburg in winter," you say to me,
As I admire how your hair encircles
your face and moves with the slightest whisper

against your jacket, loud as our whispers,
voices barely swirling past. The car moves,
grumbling tires spinning their tight black circles.
Thumping pot holes, our disjointed music.
Your hand, finally, stretches to find me,
fingers lending warmth to frozen streets.

Until when thankfully we leave the streets
and lend flesh to the heat of our whispers.
I watch FOREVER pass in front of me
as the pattern of your red lips removes
any doubt you doubt, and with the music,
I close my eyes. The light leaves pink circles

throbbing on my eyelids. And fear circles.
You see, the pattern returns to these streets,
where even in embrace, doubtful whispers,
tickling my brain like the theme music
of Prokofiev's wolf, seem to warn me.
Yet I hold fast when the melody moves.

We move past circles, yet still use whispers.
We pass dead-end streets, we decide our move.
Past patterns? Music that does not move me.