Exercise in Patience

Krysta Lee Frost

 

Patience is minor
despair. I leave
my face by the door.
The door shudders against
the city’s minor horror.
Patience is a virtue I
cannot afford. Disquiet
moves my hands
in droves, I’m all hands
without my face. I’m all
faceless as the city drones.
The city is impatient
in droves. I’m faceless
in the window. The man’s
reflection is impatient.
The man fucks me
faceless. I am careful
with my makeup. I leave
artifice at the door.
I caress his disquiet, say
it looks like mine. Identity
is a virtue? I afford another
dawn. I strip off layers. I
salve minor horrors. You call
me your patient. The body is
the mind’s patient, a disquiet pair.
The mind is despair. My face
is a portrait of patience, an exercise
in hands. The wound is not
a virtue my body can afford.
The wound is disquieted
without the face. The city
watches in droves. The wound
is left at the door.

 
 

Krysta Lee Frost is a mixed race Filipino American poet who halves her life between the Philippines and the United States. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Berkeley Poetry Review, Hobart, The Margins, Entropy, wildness, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman.