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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