Mask of Marble

Her frown

Sadness

You’d think it permanent

Stapled to her lips like porcelain.

Chisel marks covered her skin,

Wispy, black hair obscuring

Her face

Melting like honey.

Moorish brown

With splashes of orange

Her eyes

Like sandbags

A smile

Sunken into folds of a frown

The corners of her mouth

Bunching like curtains.

Her features

Draped over her bones

Like laundry on a chair

She caught herself in her hands

Spilling tears

Melting like chocolate

In the midsummer night.

Me,

I remember you best in flesh

Clothed in black

Sitting,

Smiling.

Nicholas Stan ‘26

I made this piece inspired by a photo I took of a sculpture I saw in the house of Romania's former dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu. I guess I looked at her as if she had worked in the house, and following the end of Ceaușescu's reign, she now had nowhere to turn, and was left behind, alone.