Limited Exponent

I repurposed my new mirror.

There’s a stand-up mirror in my room.

A cheap, rectangular wood-framed one,

With cracks branching horizontally over the spot

Which reflects my face.

 

It was broken

When I took it from my roommate,

Just before he threw it out.

 

It’s a recent acquirement, but

I imagine myself in it in years,

When my skin begins to reflect its cracks

And distortions.

 

The wandering split in its surface

Seems to me like a timeline.

That’s why I use it as a calendar.

 

With an expo marker,

I write out a schedule.

I begin from the left,

Where the crack is singular,

And continue filling in dates to the right

As the break fans out through the glass.

 

Each time the crack branches,

I include possible plans,

Different things I may or may not do,

And by the end of the month,

At the mirror’s edge,

The words shrink illegibly into a mass

Waiting to be wiped clean.

 

This exercise is all well and good, but

I also think of myself as absent from it in years,

Or maybe days, I don’t know,

I’m not the type to plan these things,

 

But whenever a friend,

Or a loved one or a repo man or all of them

Come to gather my things,

They’ll see themselves there,

Their reflected faces deconstructed like Picasso pieces,

And my plans hovering between them:

 

All my futures

Trapped inside a wooden box.

Author's Note

I feel like I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew with my choice of image. I was wondering if it comes across clearly enough to visualize.