Masks in the Attic

There are four of them on the dove grey wall.
Inuit Indian masks. Bright. Stirring.
Each with a small spotlight closely focused
to bring out the details and draw your attention
even from a distance.

The curator tells you little.
Approximate dates. Origin.
He leaves it to your imagination
to find meaning in each one.

In your own mind you give them names,
their own nom de guerre, after your own masks
so slowly peeled away over a lifetime,
no less museum pieces than these,
occasionally hung on the wall
as poetry or art, but mostly, and deservedly,
lost in the attic.

About this poem.

We all wear masks. Life, I have come to believe, is about slowly shedding them.

Tom