The Mask of Dante (2012)

            How vain, to want to see the poet’s face

            so long after his death. As if I’d find

            some vestige of his wisdom, or some trace

            of all his words, some aspect of his mind

            within his face. What, even, would I ask

            of these sad eyes, this craggy nose, these lines

            set in by his life’s grief, if these lips cast

            in stone began to speak? The face, perhaps

            like every face, is nothing but a mask;

            and I try not to see, but wear, the mask.