Mirrorself

a poem

This poem has just been published in Birmingham Poetry Review. Since it appeared in the print edition, I am reposting it here. I wrote it a very long time ago — maybe when I was 19: I was obsessed with alexandrines then. I woke up with the first two lines on Christmas Day, and wrote the rest without even knowing what I was going to say next. I remember when it was first accepted for publication I saw the projected date of its appearence, several years into the future & could only think of it as a whimsically long time to wait: a mistily speculative destination. Now that we are here: how so much has changed! and now that we ARE here! SCARY.

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Mirrorself

Back to the guttural speech-cave, that primitive

organ with its fat worm nestling against the rocks.

I make my name & watch the mirror's mouthparts twitch,

my jaws sleeked by each syllable that they let drop.

I walk back half a century until my face

is wearing my Grandfather's face to watch his mask

rehearsing speech: whetting the scientific blade

of leave-taking. He is all hedged in by the dark

of the mirror's masque, & silence's false night

hinges between his jaws that I'm half dragged in: to languish.

Did he flee the girl before she felt the child

flutter her gut? His cells beat through me like a language

of departure. Cousined coldly in the glass

our faces entwine. His absence roots its presence in,

& when I say my name again to pierce the mask

what kernel-voice cracks through my voice to quicken?