Life by Numbers

I would like, she said,
to traverse this boundary
separating peace and fear
to see what is in between.
Her eyes, sharp and unfocused,
the seed-darts of lotus,
cannot honestly see without
the simultaneous shudder
that I often duplicate
when losing myself
in a theory of Horror.
Is a mask, she asks,
actually a mask if
the facade is the same
as the face it obscures?
A question, of course,
to which I have no reply,
instead I shrug my shoulders
and you shrug your shoulders
and she shrugs her shoulders
and continues making snowflakes:
simply fold,
and cut along the dotted line.

-the ambassador