Mask

TO have your face left overnight
Flung on a board by a crazy sculptor;
To have your face drop off a board
And fall to pieces on a floor
Lost among lumps all finger-marked
—How now?

To be calm and level, placed high,
Looking among perfect women bathing
And among bareheaded long-armed men,
Corner dreams of a crazy sculptor,
And then to fall, drop clean off the board,
Four o’clock in the morning and not a dog
Nor a policeman anywhere—

Hoo hoo!
had it been my laughing face
maybe I would laugh with you,
but my lover’s face, the face I give
women and the moon and the sea!