The customer left happy

The customer left happy.

I smiled at her back

as the door

closed.

The smile stayed.

In the glass,

fluorescent light

washed me gray—

my smile holding steady,

my eyes already

somewhere else.

The person looking back

was assembled,

piece by piece:

polite smile, patient tone,

the shape of someone

with nowhere to be

but here.

I drove home still wearing

the mask.

Can't find the seam

where it ends

and the real face

begins.

Maybe there is no beginning.

Maybe the performance

is the only thing

that's been alive

all along.

Maybe the real one

died first

and I've been wearing

what came after.