Moon Mask

I put it on to summon serenity. Its cracks & fissures & waterless lakes covered my alarm, my unrouged thoughts & bereft feelings. I’d made the mask of papier maché over metal netting from an old window screen whose rips I’d tried to repair. The face of the waning moon, just past full, & eyeholes slightly misaligned. A narrow cut for the mouth & two pinholes for the nostrils. Breathing’s slightly stifled but that’s apt these days. Almost colourless, shades of pearl & dirty-snow white with grubby thumb-prints and a few scrawls of inky script in a language I’m trying to learn.

Maureen Hynes