“Let us go then, me and I,
where the dawn is spread across the sky
like raspberry jam on the morning toast.
And certainly I feel like roast
almonds stripped of all their skin,
like almond butter spread thin.
Or do I feel like some mixed-up, diluted drink?
Not that it matters, but what do you think:
Will they say ‘self-irony becomes him,’ or
will they spit in my face this tasteless metaphor?”

He moves away from the mirror and fastens his tie;
his reflection has nothing to answer.
I stand beside him. He turns and looks
through me until his eyes meet the glass.
The framed portrait returns his bewildered
stare; my face somewhere in the background,
disturbing, incongruous, spoiling the picture.
He hasn’t heard what I said.

“I’m just gonna tell them how I really feel.
That way at least I will be really real.
I do not care what they will say - only,
whenever I go somewhere, they make me feel so lonely,
and even worse, they make me feel exposed.
I dread the going, but the people I dread most.
Not that I am afraid, it’s just – they stare . . .
Don’t stare at me! You must not think I care!
What do you think they think of me?
What do you think they think I think?
Any suggestions what I should be
today? If life’s a stage, then someone spilled his ink
over my script: whichever role I try to play,
they do not like me, no – and yet I cannot stay.”

Why do you never ask me? If I
didn’t see your value, deep inside, I wouldn’t be
here, still, waiting for you to take off
this cloak of invisibility you have cast on
me. Why do you never speak to me? Speak.

He crams a small mirror in his pocket and goes,
closes the lid on my face in the doorframe.

“Okay, let’s go and put the visor down –
and yet I fear it will be pierced by every laugh and mock and frown . . .”

He stares ahead, then in his pocket mirror, and I
walk beside him. He doesn’t see me, doesn’t discover
the endless sky, the beams of rising sun I shoot
into his little piece of glass, the dawning sun,
round and whole and juicy like an orange,
complete in its flavour, sure of itself, unafraid of the knife.

July 2000