Poem: Frontal Aside by Ariel Riveros

A face can't
display divisions
multiplying
the decanate
visiting in
volume, flooding
a room and request
for response.
They will bare
teeth roughly
to bite.

They will
melt like
gold, they
will observe,
picking like
quick pincers
pinching across
green velvet.

They would ask
that night would
hurry to be here
that the scramble
of lights and lamps
and street halogens,
fluoros, lighter
and candlelight
grid close like

a fragmented sun
always congealing
like a human effort
incompletable
attracting pride
via virtue

Like you who
jinxes visual
re-encounter in
lit rooms.

Pulling faces
out of a hat.
Never work
on stage, you
animal.