Behind the Masks

Behind the Masks



Vaccinated posters breathe
sighs of relief
through faded masks
with droopy elastic
hanging off tired ears,
exhausted from hearing
confrontational retoric.

Masks may stop the germs,
but they cannot stop the flow
of words or hate. We need
a new attitude or new masks
that stifle the words that inflame.
But I don't ever want words silenced
so that won't work. And yet,
isn't that already the newest plague?

The (Any) opinion not in complete
agreement with the masses
is cause for dispute, disruption.
Mayhem.
Impersonal civilized debate
is a dinosaur, extinct.

Never will all of a people agree.
Prevailing opinions
are just that. Not fact.
History happened. Right or wrong.
Erasing (attempting to) it
or trying to rewrite it
won't change the then.
Can't hide it behind a mask.

Covid rewrote daily lives,
part of a pandemic that was more
than a virus of cells. People put each other
in cells even as quaranteen
made prisoners of us all.

Masks hid smiles that may or may not
have ever been there at all. Caution
begged to learn what lurked
behind those coveredfaces.
Once, one wouldn't dare
enter a bank wearing a mask,
now you can't enter anywhere
without one. And yet, more than ever,
we became aware that smiles
rarely reached the eyes.
People could hide in brief annonymity.

Perhaps, when it is safe
to take a deep breath once again, when
themasks come off for good:
we will be able to look at each other
and see not fear, or disdain,
but smiles that reach to eyes
and expressions of acceptance.