Mirror Image

Maturity is when all of your mirrors turn into windows. - Thoreau

fissures and cracks

narrow ridges and wide gaps

missing pieces

chips, fragments, relics, crannies and crevices

fully aware of what heaven might be and hell is

sharp shards

others edgy and dull

i look at myself in a broken mirror

only now the reflection is truer than true

i try to level the playing field in a stained, beltless bathrobe together with one new slipper and one old shoe

leaning in closer for a hint, a whisper, any hidden clue

i worry that i'll never get it back together, no matter what i do

near certain that i'm all out of soulful superglue

maybe i could fashion some using sunday morning's dew

not instead of but in lieu

while i'm kneeling in purgatory's pew

or at the coffee shop drive-thru

using some unsweetened, stirred brew

i could hire a lawyer and sue someone but the question is, "who"

tomorrow doesn't forget what yesterday knew

i wonder how things went so askew

altering my view

time turning the screw

adding black to my blue

as haunting ghosts from the past sarcastically peek over my shoulder, cursedly mouthing, "hey you, boo"

Author's Note

“It required some rudeness to disturb with our boat the mirror-like surface of the water, in which every twig and blade of grass was so faithfully reflected; too faithfully indeed for art to imitate, for only Nature may exaggerate herself.” - Thoreau

Reviews

[Thomas W Case]

Tremendous work Pete. Very vulnerable and real.

[Poetic Beauty]

The past likes to sneak up on us like startling apparitions in the night. Time passes and things change but some things broken can not be super glued to make a different outcome

[Pete]

doesn't it though. like a thief in the night ... :)

[Poetic Beauty]

Like a thief of all pleasant thoughts

[1809 Black Plague Decem..]

Dear Pete, I relate, mirrors are so ever haunting,
especially, when you play with them, and the deceit
is in your mirror.
I urge you to write a longer version, or itself of the prose,
great writ! ----Maynard