Osmosis: the slow passage of a substance through a membrane,
two unequal states moving toward balance.

Each face is a membrane.
What crossed it stayed — ritual, ornament, inheritance.
Some of it rests on the skin.
Some has sunk into the concrete and become the wall.

The faces are frontal, still, enlarged past likeness,
until the skin no longer describes a person
and begins to keep a record.

What remains is not all that entered.
Only what was strong enough to cross.