chamaeleon

in a sky of change
night is falling
regardless

humanity’s failing sight
comes to rest on the earth
beneath the stars’ shapes
lost to us in polar air hidden
with ice’s hoar-frost secrets

the self has taken refuge
behind a face
neither mirror nor sky
can recognise

pigments slip
through the cells
and the bloodstream
carries them outward

intending
to deceive
I scuttle away
a lizard on this rock
a mystery to myself
hiding in my skin
from the flesh
stretched on it
my own mask

I am
the stars
their light
and interpretation

I am
perception
its mistakes
and its illusions

I am
a scum of DNA
on a moving pond
life still becoming
its questions unidentified
in an empty heaven

© BH, 2019

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Spotted a call out for submissions to The Writers Cafe Magazine on the theme ‘Masks’. Gave it a try with this. No word; not successful. Ho hum. Try again some other time.

I updated it before sharing in this tiny bubble of cyberspace.

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Original version submitted 20th August 2019 to Marie Lightman at The Writers’ Café Magazine – https://thewriterscafemagazine.wordpress.com