William Lessard

FINDINGS: [2920] Terrible Faces

Every time the page reloads, a different face appears. The face fills the entire screen.
Most of the faces are white, smooth, the eyes and lips not matching but paired to ask different halves of the same question. No explanatory material is provided, except for
the address of the site, which proclaims “none of these people exist.” You wonder for
a moment why you are not disturbed. Each face swiveled toward you from a blurred background, is created for a moment, created then destroyed the next time you press “ENTER.” Maybe you enjoy flesh spun from ghosts, you wonder whose eyes, whose
lips, whose nose you’re looking at, they could be the lips of your first love, or the eyes
of your brother setting fires, you imagine them out there, hopping from face to face,
you hope they are happy alongside these borrowed features. Part of you expects to see your face scattered there one day, or maybe just your nose, now living a different life.

FINDINGS: [2918] Terrible Faces

Face of a woman staring between the zipper of a body bag.

Stinging, red, face of a boy—his father’s fingers tracing his cheek.

Face knotted, fisted across the room into a pile of laundry.

(Usually one smack. Tonight:

smack,

smack,

smack,

smack.) 

Face without nose.

Face without eye or lip.

Three girls. Two holding a shiny coin. The third, two shards

of a night shattered across the face of her mother.

A kind Northern face.

The chin scissored back in strips.

Winter came through the window wearing gloves.

Winter that removes its teeth before eating.

The last time she spoke, only blood and prepositions.

Mother dressed in the dirt where they found her.

A brevity. Pointed. Fork with tongs bowed in half.

Face rewoven as a grin.