Tonight's Poet Corner: The Deflated Mask

The Deflated Mask
by Belinda Roddie

The sagging folds
of sighs and daydreaming
in rubber molds and creases
and the wrinkles are from the
wind blowing through a small slat
in your attic window.

The chest it lies in
feeds spiders ash and dust
and they grow fat from the
lack of fat with their eggs
gnawing at the plaster.

You wore this for Halloween one year,
becoming thirty years older,
wise,
still dapper,
and capable of properly sporting a
brown tweed jacket with a
bright blue bowtie. But
now you are thirty years
older, and that mask
at last looks younger,
like the days you
melted butter in the sky
and kissed honeysuckle
off of lips eager to
see you grow up.