What Rough Beast | Poem for October 3, 2017

Beverly Fesharaki
Divided We Hide

each face on the street a stone
jagged edges smoothed

we hide under miasmic
makeup smeared
to cover gray green underbelly
to change grimace to grin

our outside cool masks
fiery geodes
smoldering in secret

fueled by trembling
fear
of recognition

we cower in tears
like the fetuses
we remember

helpless as untended
newborns
we take cover
under
rock hard shells

forgetting our connection

every face a lie
every lie a longing

 

Bev Fesharaki’s poems have appeared in Wrist Magazine and Poets on the Coast 2014 (from the Museum of Northwest Art annual writing retreat for women), as well as in the anthology Women Writing: On the Edge of Dark and Light (Pilgrim Spirit Communications, 2015), a collection of works by Tacoma-area poets associated with the Inscape poetry group at the Catherine Place community center. Fesharaki lives in Mukilteo, Wash.

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