WITNESS IN THE MIRROR

Outfrom my eyes, into my eyes, the moted glass reflects each aspect, unknown when spied. (I thought I knew this face, now suspect.) Here, slight sag of jaw, there lines that trace me selfward. Are these mine, these unwise sockets, smeared with watchful nights? This riant mouth that owns no pride? A facade. A mask. A blind. I need not stand naked to know what covert flesh embodies me. Last flush from neck to breast, keeping confidential. Embattled Hebi, lost and limping, stretched too wide beyond the call (or perhaps too many times?) in reprise of more sedentary crimes. What purpled worming truth with one more stance, one more long-standing rise? A capsule. A bottle. An urn. I? Locked on, I know my Self, imperfect in its parts. Youth no longer fits my face as planned, nor innocense, my breast. Yet I am. Unmarred without the glass, unreflected without an eye to play me back and frame the image, a whole that would ignore the verity of the visage and decry the decades dimmed. An I, filled with visions separately limned. I? Am not a pigment or a line. I lie in place somewhere behind the etchings of these eyes. I am not the sight, but just the thought. A silhouette in skrim. Unrecognized.

Copyright © 1989, 1997 Kathleen Anspach Preddy

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