Masked

Once, at Halloween, we donned neat masks. Gave each other’s children starched smiles and compliments, even if we hated endless streams of Spiderman and Batman on our blocks.

Now masks represent the preservation of humanity or a Bolshevik conspiracy.

We exchange glares, words, invade space bubbles. A fist invades a face, and another.

Masks are trampled in the rumble, invectives hanging in the air, preserved under charcoal-colored clouds and butter-colored street lamps. We forget the kids.

They wander off. They get hit by cars.

But we’re stripping our smiles with ease.

Relief and dread rise while we ready for the next round.

Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. His story, "Soon," was nominated for a Pushcart. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.