some ways to say mask

What if this mascarilla draws up threads of light and time

from beneath the forest floor? What if this kimāma ushers your dead

to the navel of renewal? What if this pkkhlum, veil between breaths,

is grandmother’s conundrum of mourning? This kinyago, molded 

to the face of the world, portal to beauties of variation? This saynata,

a path that is single, known only to its walker?

What if these parda were not stonewall, nor camouflage, nor shrouds,

nor prophylaxis against a worst imagining of what you can become?

What if these habiliments hide nothing, reveal all, lead back to

the knowing—that you are not alone in this, or any other, state of due

transition? That when the kinapak is unloosed, what’s left is this web

of self and selves, taste of air and pine, a gratitude on the skin.

Your eyes in shadow, threads of light and time, unveil the way home.

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*  the ways “mask” is said in this poem:

mascarilla: Spanish / kimāma: Arabic / pkkhlum: Thai /

kinyago: Kiswahili / saynata: Quechua/parda: Urdu /kinapak: Inuit.

Silver Birch, May 2020