It started at the time of the virus. We were told to avoid contact with other humans, to wear mouth-nose face masks to hide our identities. Over time the masks grew to cover our eyes, then our hair, becoming a sort of headdress. A few pranks later, we had to wear them permanently. The Governors had the survivors fitted with masks that not even death could remove. As if by magic, they became parts of ourselves. We came to see the beauty in them. We ate, loved, aged, died wearing them.

who we are
the slightest shift
in the umbra

—Winner of MacQ’s Magician Ekphrastic Writing Challenge

Stella Pierides

is a British poet of Greek descent who divides her time between Neusaess, Germany, and London, England. She serves on the Board of Directors of The Haiku Foundation (THF) and works on its Haikupedia (encyclopedia of haiku) project.

Interweaving the past with the present, Stella’s work is located at the meeting points of cultural, social, and psychological worlds, which spark the day-to-day moments of our lives. Her work has been published in numerous print and online journals and anthologies. She has co-edited and contributed to Even Paranoids Have Enemies: New Perspectives on Paranoia and Persecution (Routledge, 1998) and Beyond Madness (JKP, 2002).

Recent books include Feeding the Doves, short stories and haibun (Fruit Dove Press, 2013); and two books, In the Garden of Absence, micro-poetry and haiku (Fruit Dove Press, 2012), and Of This World, haibun (Red Moon Press, 2017), which received Haiku Society of America Merit Awards for books published in 2012 and 2017, respectively.

For more info, visit her website and blog: https://stellapierides.com