Faces are like complex metaphors

to life,

Happy like a child’s

first solo bicycle ride,

Or grim like Patty the parrot

buried in the backyard,

Treacherous like frozen ice

on your doorstep,

or innocent like a ticklish cackle.

Faces are like dreams

altering reality, and

reality altering dreams.

Playing my life in reverse

I see a fanfare of

faces.

Yours is a face I see over and over.

Your skin so light as if bleached by time

And your silver hair so thin

I can feel The ebb and flow of blood

in your scalp.

In my dream you are always wobbling

toward me unsteady like a ship

wavering side to side.

School’s just out and I am running to you

with outstretched arms eager to run into your

embrace like a hungry seagull.

But then like always

I wake up.

If faces are like metaphors, then

the memory of yours is like a quilt;

warming me

with it’s comforting  familiarity.

I pull it over me like a tent

and sleep in its dream-like embrace.