The Lady in the Iron Mask
       

Screws fasten onto a table. I picture
an impact wrench. Apply even torque—
a little on each bolt until the final click
of silence, meaning you're here for a while,
the head can't move. My mind drapes

a cloth over it to form a heart, its metal
mesh shaped into a smirk around the mouth,
two caves for sockets meant to keep them closed.
Flashes of light through tight pinches
that might be a camera taking photos

if you stretch. My sister tells me
while lying there, she can see the brightness
beneath the translucent shells
of her lids. I try to recall the story of Dauger
and how he spent his life boxed-in

until even historians don't know for sure
it was he who lived beneath the grills.
I ask her if she's nervous, having her brain
blasted like that. No. It only hurts, she says,
not being able to move my head for long stretches.

Dauger, servant to a servant, may have also counted
minutes. Breakfast at nine, lunch at two, dinner
at eight. Whatever you do, don't move,
the tech tells her and I imagine Dauger's mask
growing to love his face.

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Copyright © 2019 Grace Curtis All rights reserved
from Everything Gets Old
Dos Madres Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission