Surface Tension

The bolt slides home with a heavy, brass click,

shutting the party on the other side of the grain.

I lean on the porcelain, feeling the trick

of a face that’s been holding a smile like a strain.

In the mirror, the muscle just falls away,

leaving the eyes of a man who’s been gone.

I’m a theater ghost at the end of the play,

waiting for someone to turn the house lights on.

I look at the collar, the starch and the debt,

and a smear of foundation, a beige, waxy line.

It’s a stain where the mask and the body have met,

and neither of them is particularly mine.