One of Fifteen

A mask hangs on the wall
of my apartment.
It's lived there a long time,
much longer than the others, with their
blue-green-gray faces of pulled smiles
and stripped cheeks.
This one has watched the longest;
it scares my girlfriend.

Bought in another lifetime in a Mexican bazaar
when I laughed as a child and wore my own flesh.
Straw hair and snakeskin beard,
rectangle mouth and upturned horns that cut and draw a lover's blood,
It sees but cannot breathe.
I try not to wear it anymore,
but it hangs there still.