Persona, Afshan Shafi

The ‘dissolution of the persona’
Can be achieved by gutting
all fragrant garrets of their chartreuse and liquor
By spurning the monkish leers
Of personable academics,
By refuting the archetype of
The ‘wise old woman’
Or the horsy doppelgangers
Swooning out of the clavicles
Of Ivorian harps,
By asserting the voracity of hyaline
Over the more lugubrious Roman candle,
By refuting the Brunswick blue of love’s
Oppression,
By refusing the handsome or the rich,
For some reward too ingenious to divulge,
For the persona is a priest’s imperative,
A sexagenarian’s masterpiece
Of tact,
A butch girls’ enthralling libretto
Or the giant stalagmites of
A woman’s rhinestones at noon