When billowing, quicksilver clouds
Dissipate in a dream
And the mind awakes to enact its sleepy life
As if shown on a screen
I wonder, are you but a memory
To remind me of today
Or does your vitreous probe
Divulge a world so desolate, far flung, far away
Or is it a sign
A terrible portent of dark things to come
A bleak mirror image you present
Of a world no less dark
And here robbed of its sun
Mirror man, my suffering soul of glass
Isolated in limbo, with frozen eyes
Transfixed, you watch this world pass
Your crystal corpus it cries so hard
As it tries to absorb the light
A brittle body of glass that breaks
And melting, bleeds away into the night
Peer deep and darkly into the depths of my soul
This splintered glass cage
Where once was a hole
Filled now with debris
Here amid my dire detritus of despair
A see-through man screams soundlessly
Invisible the trap
And transparent his lair
Mirror man, what is it you see
When I look into you
And you look into me
You framed me and forged
This duplicate we own
Then split me in two
Making me feel so alone
The trailing scars that savagely mar your face
Your life in a rut
Flung far into space
Where cruel skies do crack
And the lightning birds wander
To mend the skies not
But rip them asunder
In the guilt-framed mirror
Your reflection but once does waver
No trace of a conscience
No son and no saviour
Hyaline habitus, frosted not free
Wide is the expanse, the glassy sheen of the sea
In this I see you
And in that you see me
Still the locks of your body are stopped
Defying my penetration
The turn of the key
Oh, mirror man, don’t murder me
Far have I travelled
Beyond the dark fringe of the sea
I am like you
And you are like me
I am but your reflection in my mirror
Multiplied by you endlessly
So, where the darkness holds sway
And the shadows grow tall
A single shaft of light is enough
And with arms outstretched
I’m nailed to the wall
Upon all this you gaze now unwaveringly
Refracted by my face
In this prismatic continuum
Like open mirror glass windows all around
And here your clear-cut reflection lies still
And stationary, defies the beating of my heart
Imprisoned, arrested in every sound
Mirror man, though for safety I flee
Your unfathomable diamond eyes
Behind me still see
So, when I turn out the light
And retire swiftly to bed
Even with eyes closed
The shattered memory of you
Prickles unnervingly here in my head
And when I rise in the morning
To wipe the brittle shards from my eyes
My bloody tears flow
And standing naked
Vis a vis, we are again stripped of our disguise
For eternally aware of us
You must remember
A mirror tells no lies