Your face is strange.
As if Death drew it by hand from memory,
using a piece of charcoal. The shade
under your cheekbones and around your eyes,
where Death leaned hard with his stick of carbon
and nearly tore the paper—is it blood pooled there and dried?
Or do the shadows speak a better word, is it wine?
Your look says you heard what Death spoke
into the ears of the wheat,
and the words ran down their beards like oil.
And then the chafing. And you agreed
to enter the oven with them.
A face without genealogy
or beginning of days, and yet,
of old the heir to all things.
The first radiance of the original dark
and therefore blessed, therefore marked
“Treasure,” marked “To be opened,” marked “To be pierced.”
Pierced you were. First, through the heart.
Opened you were. Your whole body.
A treasure sold to death for pennies or a single meal,
I buy you now in exchange for my life.
The live remains of a face.
The charred and smoking remnant of a countenance.
What did you whisper into Death’s ear
that made Death’s face to shine?
Death turned out all of its pockets
and got a new job serving life.
Whisper it to me now.
Your face is strange.
Having looked upon it,
I too have become strange.
Li-Young Lee is the author of several books of poetry, most recently The Invention of the Darling (Norton) and a co-translation (with Yun Wang) of the Dao De Jing.
Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash
