The Other Side of the Mirror
How many do it—
Look in the mirror, at their life
And say I did that
Kitchen cabinets, stacks of books
A drawer full of bolts and screws
Left over from self assemble furniture kits
Cars in the garage
The kids, the wives
The loss, the broken glass
Swept up long ago
And scooped in the trash
Crickets in September
And fireflies speckling the backyard
As a boy darts through the dusk
Like a silver minnow around your feet
In a shallow river
All you want to do is stand still
And watch him circling your ankles
As long as you can
Until the current whisks him away
Not just what is owned
But what is made
And who has the best claim
Even to say the continuity of shared days
Is enough, isn’t quite enough
No longer who you once were
Nor the man once expected,
Someone else,
Clinging to the artifacts
Of a stranger’s existence.
But you found a loophole,
A way out of the sullen despair—
Look through the mirror
And give everything away
Voila! Happy and ignorant again!
Deeply engrossed again in a project
That will surely produce something
Of value, strange and new, a piece
A man calling himself you
Insists belongs to him
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