Masks

Susan, I like the flow of this poem, how it moves from you to we to universal. And the idea of house blemish familiarity is certainly universal, captured well here. I very much like “necessities and niceties” and as well the taut sound created by the short, enjambed lines. The household familiar - pictures on the wall, kitchen with dog bed, drafty door etc. are all details that effectively ground this and make it real.

I get tripped up by the use of mask in the first stanza. I think the mask at this point refers to a picture on the wall, maybe someone with whom the speaker has a less than satisfying relationship. This could be more clear, though. Maybe too picky but I don’t think of things hanging from tape (they stick to the wall as opposed to hanging from it, at least until they’ve been there a while and start sagging). You might consider, since you use the word mask in the title, going ahead and just calling the object in the first stanza a picture. I think the reader would get the connection and this would be an opportunity to clear things up a little.

In the second stanza, I was unclear on how the empty kitchen related to what was being hidden. I think you mean that things have been put away after a meal, or that people who ate that meal are gone either now or permanently. The kitchen gets so much passage usually. I wonder if you might tie in that idea somehow. This could connect nicely with the car keys and the thought of the mask/picture on the wall watching people come and go.

Just another idea - I like the ending but it calls to me for another short a sound. If you like, maybe play around with “familiar facts” or something with a similar ring.

Hi Susan,
I too like this poem, and admire the tightness and interesting shifts -- particularly the leap from his mask (I assume he is lover, husband, gone)to your own. You play off Dunbar with a modern take.  
I don't have specific suggestions, but wonder how loss plays into this poem.  It lurks out there, like the decayed weather-stripping (What a great metaphor!)
Like love, this house seems to be falling apart.  so sad. But inevitable, given "crooked, empty eyes."
Good work.  Yes, we are all in hiding, all wearing our masks.

This is an interesting poem. Your playing with the theme of Dunbar, obviously. The mask--I read it as a homemade mask, a object d'art, made by the speaker's partner. The mask gets us to the relationship between the you and the speaker. The you also has a "mask"--refuses to catch the speaker's eye. I like this duality. And I like how each stanza begs for us to engage a different mask (stanza 3 asks for us to see through the speaker's mask) and ups the ante of what's at stake in the relationship.

I get lost as the poem turns to the next masks, the ones with the keys. You need to define them (monster masks, ski masks, whatever); this will clarify things a bit. The whole poem relies on a bit of genericness until we get to the smudges in the kitchen, which return us to the questions of feeding this family. Nice.

I like very much your play on Those Winter Sundays "weakened weather." Ha!