The Mountain and the Teaspoon

Lindsay Stuart Hill

“What is your original face…the face you had before your parents were born?”

– Case 23, The Gateless Gate

*

Don’t eat. Don’t brush your teeth, your hair.
Don’t even take a piss. There were no stars.

*

She thought of astronomy class, high school.
Neutron matter: the weight of a mountain
held in a teaspoon.

*

Paxil, Celexa, Lexapro. She made a choice
she could not explain. She cried
and the therapists blinked.

*

The sensei said: focus on a point two finger-widths
below the navel. It will become your face.
You will smile from it, weep from it,
the skin will turn rose when you blush.

*

She wondered what would happen
to her actual face. Would it fade away? Or would it
stay put, like a person you can never get rid of,
whom you struggle and struggle to love, because,
well, how can you stop? You can stop,
replied the sensei, to the man sitting beside her.
Suppose he’s my brother, said the man.
This means nothing, the sensei said.
If you so choose, you can stop.

*

She starts. A leaf catches in her hair.
A caterpillar curls in her palm.
Inside her, two hearts beat.

*

Prosopagnosia: a condition that makes all faces
indistinguishable. She imagines walking
through a park full of children, not knowing which
is hers, but listening for a shout.