tapered raze her face is a brass sculpture. seen from the side, it could be anyone. head-on, it's her. she's a photograph on the back cover of an album made with a band that broke up years before i knew her. she stands and smirks with the other unnamed players fanning out around her. i glaze my face with dish_soap. try to invent their backstory. i ask the washcloth which sector of its skin i can trust with my own. the shrunken towel has nothing to say to me. neither does the bass guitar held by a man who slumped into the space beneath a cloth-covered table, its pockets heavy with synthetic plastic spheres, sleeping off last night's sins while his wife spooned the snow from their driveway. the fullness of his fingers dancing across the tapered neck until he isn't playing notes anymore. 241114 what's it to you? who go blather from