Mirrors Of Home

Mirrors eat people with each glance,
snatch seconds away,
stop us from seeing
anything beyond ourselves.

Take that awful etched-glass thing
left like a curse in my bathroom.
It drives me mad playing tricks
showing me a face
only I can see, a reversal
of the reality, not
the world’s view of me.

That old gold-framed thing
Dad helped me lug from Rye.
Did it steal his hand-hold,
did it suck him inside?
Is that why I think of him
every single time I pass?

That one you left behind
creates endless pure images
of your face, but just in my mind
as its surface shows the yellow wall.
So why do I hear your laughter
when I look at it, suspect
it sunk you thousands of times
in its silvered depths?