Face Reading

Two fingers can turn
with ease to violence:
 
some things must not be
permitted to grow,
 
so I weed with the white lie
of remorse
 
the limp strands
that a woman who traded
 
her worn schoolbooks for refuge only
to grey in entrapment
 
has said means I was touched by fire
and so will be
 
cold to the touch,
brightest before
 
slow death and joining the rest of
them,
 
those whose brows and eyes
are too ashen now to be even told apart.
 
I pay my respects by hand, quick in
the manner they left us
 
so that what remains is the
fear we never manage to sweep away.

Copyright Credit: Travis Chi Wing Lau, "Face Reading" from Hypertext Magazine.  Copyright © 2021 by Travis Chi Wing Lau.  Reprinted by permission of Travis Chi Wing Lau.
Source: Hypertext Magazine (Hypertext Magazine & Studio, 2021)