My night, marish, clops through
a mirror life
some mad scientist might
have coaxed to self-replicate
into an intemperate ooze.

I’m standing there,
and then I’m not,
lost in its reflection
and aflutter with a flabbergasting abandon
at having met you
after a bushel of now grainy,
barren years.

It is me, and it’s not
or it’s both, I can’t say
who it is, who turns away
panicked by the befuddling
indifference in your voice
before it trails off
and tumbles into a cruel muddle
of swallowed gruel,
where I’m unable to skim out
the love I loved in you,
once, or spoon
one meager goodbye.