Mimesis
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Cavernous this room of culled eggshells,
edge to tidy edge, such clean shores
of solitude – cold, white chamber of birth
or death, I traverse in middle September.
Straighten a bath mat, end a dripping tap,
ghost-echo of footsteps and breath. Behind
the shower a whole-wall mirror – cool, clear
slab, hidden doorway in childhood to a world
of infinite song and summer. Transformed
now to looking-glass. Slow, patient reflector
of my graceless undressing; spooled
clothing, the eventual amazing lightness of air
on skin. I touch this bark scathed by familiar
longing, lined by the persistent wrench of hours,
pulled to open earth, and marked by secret
network of scars. Beyond the window,
past raw, pecan plumbing, the world is in autumn
and trees turn russet-yellow. I turn quietly like a leaf.
