Whatever your mirrors tell you, morning and evening
Are farther always than your wish for them.
Light-years to the nearest star, the atoms of lightning,
A halo about the sun or moon foretelling storm
These are not matters for reverie or a kiss:
States tremble when the dog-star runs amiss.
Your life is labyrinths. Though cloud sky cry
Bird-pace, crow-call, sparrow, sparrow,
The days confuse you ineluctably
With chemical composites in your marrow.
And from the spawning molecules of your blood
Time rages to be understood.
Well then, you have his photos, the misspelled letters,
Promise of love, the school prom souvenirs,
The scrap book with his clippings from the papers,
And a black headline stamped across your years
That is not football nor the school election,
But history’s machine for vivisection.
While I, in an invented laboratory
Sit in a sunny corner and prescribe
Shall we say nonsense or chronology?
No matter: what your mirrors will describe
When you have faced your wish sufficiently
Is not your image, but your history.
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