(The last two, including one that's kind of a reconstitution of one that's been here before. Apparently it was also a fave of a lot of people, for some reason!)

Dark Glasses

At the costume ball, I choose to wear dark glasses.
But when we dance, you ask me what I'm supposed to be.
I'm dressed as two of you, in miniature, looking
Up in vain at my eyes, as we dip and spin.
Then you put on a pair of shades, too, and like the Matrix,
We dance aggressive rumba, sometimes in slow motion.
When I drop you on my knee and our noses touch,
Time stops altogether, and in the reflection
Of the reflection, of the reflection of the reflection,
We stare for forever, twice over.
When I help you up, you rip off our glasses and seize me
In a sanity-threatening liplock. Now, face to face,
The last dance fades to dim. Now, knowing fully,
The last forever shows its incompleteness.

---------

Silvering (redux)

Mirror maker is wince and grit as he holds
the two devil bottles over the glass
bombers so sleek and toxic
and poured above his own face
a nitrate of silver in ammonia
now brooding with crusty salts
it's new life on the placenta of glass
because he himself is going
to be born himself again

But then it burns, and burns
and he grinds dust from his molars
until the hour passes
and he drains himself

Finally the mirror is rinsed and dry
and he blinks himself
to see a brand new himself
because himself is pure and painful
and himself is perfect in every way
a god in his gross, deformed brilliance.

(Two more from/for the poetry festival!)

When We Moved

We got in the car, so my dad could show off
the area around our new home. As we drove,
he pointed with one hand or both eyebrows,
and then sidelong-glanced for my approval.

'Look at that hospital, it's beautiful,
quite beautiful,' he said
I watched it grow small in the rearview
then gave him a smile

'Look at that church, quite beautiful,
and close by, too,' he said.
The steeple shrank away in the rearview
and I made sure to nod

'Look at that funeral home, quite beautiful,
really quite beautiful"
In rearview, it looked quite beautiful.
In rearview, I see my dad
And he is beautiful, smiling and nodding

---------------

Jilly

Jilly always stopped at mirrors
Not to straighten out her hair
But her many personalities.

For example, if in her flat brown eyes
A little extra hazel peered out,
Mrs. McGradie puttered about inside.

That one bad day almost put Jilly down,
When in the looking-glass she watched her browns
Bloom into lush, come-hither green fractals,
Wherein the lusty Cassandra pouted.

The others knew what happened
Last time Cassandra took control,
So they organized a coup, but to little avail.
Anna took a blow on her glasses,
Guinivere a dagger to the heart.
Even Mayumi's swordplay was undercut,
Much less the battle-cries
Of Bernice, Danielle, Fanny.

In the end it was Mrs. McGradie
Who took her out with a long spatula.
Outside, Jilly lay on the floor
By the bleeding full-length mirror.
She watched herself panting thanks
To the stodgy hazel grumper.

(Two Poems from the Mirror Series, originally presented at the Columbia College Undergraduate Poetry Festival, April 2010)

Addiction
They say that for my addiction
I should erect a mirror
Beside my computer

I'll recruit me to monitor
Whatever's on the monitor
And size up whether what's on it, or
Still loading, is...

My slightly warm hand
Hastes to clutch my mouse
Which hovers ponderously
Over the X
The mirror urges me on
Click it
Do it

I try to hold my gaze
But in the periphery
Of my contact lenses
Something is pistoning

I reflect on the premise, that
If I can see, I can be seen
So I click, not because I am
But because I fear

------------------------

Hand with Reflecting Sphere
I've seen ten years and a black belt go by
But never a fight. Much less walking into work
Looking like The Passion and having my boss
Tell me to go home and take a sponge bath.

Why else do I visit ATMs without a bank card
But wearing my brass knuckles, just so I can stand
In front of the bulge mirror, and feel my adrenaline
topping off as I scan the space behind me for any sudden moves.

A stickup would be comic-book awesome. First frame --
Shoving money in your bag. Second frame --
Boom, you never saw me coming. Object is closer than I appear.

At rest in my armchair I perch a reflective sphere
On my red fingers, and watch the world, impossibly distant.
Escher was gangster like that.