What did your face look like
before your parents were  born?*
-zen koan

When I was a seven I wore a mask for the first time,
the head of a lion, hand-painted,

whiskered and grinning.

That night I prowled my childhood  
neighborhood, clawed at doors,

took candy from strangers.

The world was small then, my face
encased in cardboard, thin slits for eyes,

and still I remember, even at seven,
sailing inwards, watching the dance of a candle

flickering in the belly of a gourd.

I watched it shift shape, twitch
to reinvent itself again and again,

capable in that green dim night
of blooming into anything--

cliff birds rising on warm
volcanic swells,

a fox in the forest, cackling
on its back in the ferns.

I grew light,
knew that I too was ember,

flickering mystery,

neither boy nor lion.