Shrunken face: brown, refined and small. br Who reduced you to this diminutive size? br When did you become fragility's core? br You scare me. My days tremble like a cold leaf. br I wish there was more of you again. br When I hold you, please do not fold like a paper doll. br br br Photos on the TV demonstrate grief, crossed with br the hours of the young and hours of lean hands. br I look at you as you are in the uncertain present: br the years are criminal, larcenous. They steal so much; br the years hate flesh, hate the beauty of skin, br but the heart is human, it must add so much, br it must increase day to day subtraction. br It is a math of survival. The hours of numbers. br br So I add. And I add. br I put your former face before my eyes, unwittingly, br every time there is sun in this final house. br Should I glory in your weakened eyes, br because they are still here and still watchful? br Should I yearn for the mother of the grainy photos? br the one who carried the fullness of a boy br in her arms, like there was no weight to him? br Direction is like a man who is drunk, br stumbling from town to town, from mind to mind, br from platitude to platitude over kitchen tables. br br I rest in beauty because of the years br and beyond the years; years that terrorize br knowledge that is dormant but clear. br br In the faces which sometimes make us regret, br comes the shape of beauty, of a trinket br destined to live, in spite of a quiet albatross. br br Mother, we are the magicians of our later lives, br practicing the magic of old and new eyes, br jostling days like tentative circus acts.