I looked in the mirror and what did I see?
A rapidly aging simulacrum of me.
My hair has turned Gray, such as can be found.
and a lifetime of coffee has turned my teeth brown.

The muscles of youth have shriveled. I'm told.
It all part and parcel of a man growing old.
"Old age is not for wimps " A wise aunt once told me.
That knowledge is great but it fails to console me.

Am I the same person I was when I was young?
Would he recoil in horror to see what he'd become?
Was the Buddha perspicacious when he made the call
that the self called the self is no self at all?

Some scientists say that the self is an illusion.
A purely biochemical source of confusion.
A look in the mirror has me posing this question:
Who is the victim of this selfish delusion?