An enigmatic poem where Joyce travels through time as two women, a mask and a person, talk.

I see your fierce face
peering out from
behind an African mask in the window
of a 5th Avenue gallery
yet I barely pause
in my stalking of the urban prey
we call pleasure

I feel your elemental
stare travel down my spine
and sense the flash of your grey eyes
in my peripheral vision
as my feet
slip on bear grease back
through time

our conversation is brief
I tell you that the warm blooded animal
draped on your brown shoulders
is now extinct

your silence makes me
want to dig
through layers of ancestor consciousness
to see what will happen if,
for example, I unwind the gauze
wrapped around the head
of a sabre toothed tiger

I hold fast to the shopping
bag bouncing against
my knees
until I reach the corner
and merge with the crowd.

©Joyce Yarrow

Pic from Net: Painting by Cecile Blanche Bekolo Koe.

Joyce Yarrow

Joyce Yarrow is a Pushcart Prize nominee and her poetry, short stories, and music have been widely published. Her acclaimed Jo Epstein mystery series includes ‘Ask the Dead’ and ‘Russian reckoning’ and she recently co-authored a family saga/thriller, ‘Rivers run back,’ with Arindam Roy. Joyce is an activist, lobbying strongly for the anti-gun laws. When she is not writing, she sings for Abrace, aspiring for global peace.