The Old Thespian 's Gift

Children flock to the masks  

as if they were stars fallen  

to earth, glowing with  

the memory of stage lights,  

each mask tender and worn  

like an old prayer, relics  

of forgotten tragedies, heavy  

with the laughter of ghosts.  

They slip them on, snug  

as dreams, unaware  

of the weight that roots  

the mask to skin, melding  

with bone, sewing itself  

to their faces with threads  

of invisible need. They run  

into the night, their laughter  

clanging in the hollow air.  

No one tells them that this  

is the final act, that the mask  

is more than costume, that it  

becomes the face it covers.  

Even when they are called  

to shed their roles, their  

hands find nothing to lift,  

no line between flesh  

and mask, the world  

narrowing to eyes frozen  

behind a curtain that will  

never fall, their faces  

forever rehearsing a role  

they never meant to play.