PAUL TRACHTMAN

Screams & Shadows

Picasso said he turned faces into masks, like a Cubist witch doctor, to exorcise threatening spirits.

I want to catch those threatening spirits, not exorcise them, but I
can only see them when a friend takes
off her own mask, or faces me unprotected, standing in her
own shadows. 

There’s no

exorcism
here.

But there might be the shock of recognition.