different mold

Clay stretches over the styrofoam

store model head, like cheap surgical gloves

snapped over doctor’s hands, giving birth

to thick lips and defiant brows, a proud

forehead and two hills below sightless eyes.

My thumbs dig ridges into her cheekbones,

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

extra flesh stripped off, a savage sacrifice

to the pugmill gods for future resurrection.

She stares out at me until I seal her eyes shut,

encasing my fleshy fears as she enters the kiln.

Adorned with a mountain range of gears

raising from her forehead like a mechanical crown.

1950° F. She is sweating, becoming stone—

now a mangled corpse on an altar of clay.

Her eyes lying beside her nose, a cheekbone

resting in a premature grave. But there she is again,

ashy white as though recovering from a sickness

but unbroken, a techo queen, crown untouched.