A battered pier glass, the length of a running lightning,
The width of a Caesarean window,
And next to an agelong, framed
Daguerreotype, lies face down across
A musty room.
Shafts and rods of robust sunlight from cracks and holes
Make it less dingy.
The smell of arrogant tobacco haunts the breath
From the shattered floor tiles to the somnolent ceiling.
Shards and smithereens, curved and piercing,
Hook up on the protocols of stalagmites
Through the affront of invading nuns.
I see hope and despair.
I hear the muted sounds of betrayal.
The shards picture life and stress,
And are far-flung.
A small, earthen gallipot is among the shattered.
Spewing gunk on the platform of a volcano,
The confronted floor charges at my wandering feet.
My right heel bleeds gently.

I look out not for a suicide note since it’s a rare
Occurrence in rainy summer,
But I hasten cautiously to the foot of the room,
Like a worshipper strolls piously to the base of
A mountain.
And right there, I garnered the news of the day.
To begin with, it was a just a tale of a trumeau mirror —
A patented piece of introspective glass,
Part of a speculum.
And someone, not entirely debauched,
Once owned it proudly.
How did I get in here in the first place?
A portal,
The size of an elephant’s bowels,
Opened up and let me in through an
Apothecary’s maisonette.
For some fellows, mirrors crack with lightning’s
Image;
For some others, they crack with impunity.
And my shtick,
(Since the age of the hen and her eggs)
Has been to patch broken mirrors together,
Piece before piece.