Masques

In idle conversation
you ask me about
my children.
You are an acquaintance.
I do not know you well
and so I don a masque,
I speak happily of joys,
light-heartedly of mischief,
but I do not speak
of death.

I do not want to see
the shadow of uncertainty
pass your face.
And feel the
awkward silence that falls
like a curtain between us.
I do not want to say,
"It's okay, that was
long time ago."
It will never be quite" okay"
and sometimes it seems
like yesterday.

And so I take my masque
along with me through life
like a perpetual Halloween night,
to hide just a bit from people
and to preserve my strength.
For mourning is tiring
and each time I recount
that day of death
I am a little wearied.
I would much rather speak
of the joys of his life
than the sorrows of his death,
to strangers
who absently ask
of children.

Yet tragedy is more universal
than ever I had known
before it touched my life.
And so at times I wonder
who else looks out from behind
a masque.

By Karen Nelson