THE GENTLEMAN OF SHALLOT

Come Spring...

I paint my little room
all yellow

fill it with
daffodils & jonquils

drag in a giant
mirror

(left in the back yard)      

so large

it takes up
all the wall

giving the illusion
of another room

as if my room
were now not so

small.

Sometime the trompe d'oeil
fools even me

& I walk into
the imaginary room.

'Ouch! '
my reflection shouts!

Come Spring...
...came you!

(totally unexpected)      

& my playing with
perspective

hath you enthralled.

I'd catch you
catching your
reflection observing you

observing
the mirror couple

as they
mimiced us

watching our every
more

you thought it so
sensual

or could pretend to be
at a small ****

when it was only
us

again

&

again.

Bodies of flesh & blood
bodies of glass.

You breathe
upon the mirror

tracing our names
with a fingertip

fragile words
made of breath

'...this love...will last...! '

*

When we break
up

the mirror
stayed intact

except for a jagged
lightning crack

& now it was I
who watched

like a gentleman of Shallot

the couple
in the mirror

(the ghosts of
memory)      

making love

bodies of flesh
& blood

bodies

of

glass.

Am I staring into,
or out of my reflection.
free or trapped?
who am I?
or am I him?

Shifting in a mercurial pool,
mimiced in still blue water,
emulated in a window pane,
depicted in the mirrored frame,

crisp and clear from time to time,
also appears fuzzy now and again,
bleary, filmy and foggy frequently,
the scene in front of me,

Am I staring into,
or out of my reflection.
free or trapped?
who am I?
or am I him?