Lincoln's Life Mask
       

Who would guess, 150 years hence,
that visitors would line up to look you
in the eye? Staring face to face with
Lincoln, that square Midwestern
Clint Eastwood chin, every profile
from the right, excepting two, his first
campaign poster, and the cartoon of his
assassination, shanghaied from behind
by Booth.
                Nearby is the smallest book
in the world, containing the poems of
Edgar Guest, a book in a bottle that would
fit in Lincoln's mole, and the entire engraved
plate collection of Audubon, a miracle itself,
reminding one that Lincoln once shot a wild
turkey through a crack in the cabin wall.
"Who knows what lie they will buy?" Booth
thundered. One man's president is another
mans emperor.
                        Audubon never painted
a penguin, and Lincoln and Darwin were born
on the same day, on opposite sides of a dream.
Outside is a totem pole made of light, beaming
its one pure eye into space. With a wink, Lincoln
charmed Grant into silence, and Darwin stood,
staring God down, both refusing to blink.

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Copyright © 2013 Keith Flynn All rights reserved
from Colony Collapse Disorder
Wings Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission