Máscara del Conquistador
By Sarah Brook


You seem to have leapt from time, landing before my face as though I should know you. As though you knew to expect me with perfectly arranged hors d’oeuvres we crunch in the silences of conversation.

Dirt-smudged creases in your forehead have known labor wiped from the back of a hand. Your cheeks are smears of red, clotting, spreading out in circular patches. Nose a cherry burned by wind, aged by temperatures that broke your bones, set your face hard and motionless.

Even without a neck, the cross that hung against your chest reflects in your eyes. Flat eyes with my same immobile headlight gaze—pupils backed into a corner small enough to know the fear of God. Although

you sometimes forget to be afraid. Sometimes the washing machine and sink full of plates becomes too much. You have so many gods. And they all look like you. Just as tired and dirty, lusting for something.

You cannot imagine the machines that will replace you and though you have created a savior from corn husks and influence, even He does not shine as silver as grinding gears in the glaring afternoon.

When I wear you, I dream I can finally fly and see that the stars are tiny light bulbs with tangled cords all leading, finally, to an outlet. How amazing it is that so many cords can pull such energy from a single connection, these bulbs and how they light, a switch flicked by a little man behind a curtain.

Sarah Brook is currently pursuing a masters degree in School Counseling at Loyola University-Chicago. She received her B.S. in Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul and Volume 1.2 of Prick of the Spindle.

© 2009 prickofthespindle.com