MIRRORS
My mirror is a moving film,
Never still: life is no stable realm;
Time rushes you yourself behind,
As it transfigures what you'll find:
You peer in mirrors: “Am I nice?”
You won't be in that mirror twice!
What month, decade, what year is this?
Time's special glass, my TV screen:
There youth to obscene age will preen
An actorly way: old movies show
Impatient time and ageing, raw.
There, watch age flux, slough off and grow,
Dead actors too there still can glow.
What month, decade, what year is this?
You go with an actor in a week
Of strong-limbed youth and unlined cheek,
To feeble, withered puff-eyed age:
From top to bottom of the page:
Inside the sheen of paint and light
See fair and ugly lose the fight.
What month, decade, what year is this?
That vanished dame, who flashed those eyes
Eight years before my baby cries,
Dances for me in perfect mime,
Two decades dead, still in her prime,
Entrancing me at late-life's stage,
Two decades after she ceased to age.
What month, decade, what year is this?
The virgin smile of that beautiful child,
Eight times wed, there still to beguile;
Old men I've known when they were strong,
Were dead before I came along;
Young men I know were long in the tooth
Before I got my birthday suit.
What month, decade, what year is this?
Martine's hypnotic mouth and eyes,
Can still excite my fantasies,
Reminding me how I lusted once,
And yearned to take her in the dance,
Who hasn't danced these twenty years:
Though she smiles and pouts, she no longer hears.
What month, decade, what year is this?
Big painted blood-red smiling mouth,
That ravished my half-innocent youth,
Before I could name what I saw rise
And sparkle through her dancing eyes:
Though she, alas, like me grows old,
O'Hara's “last night” smile will hold.
What month, decade, what year is this?
Ruth Chatterton's sveldt dignity
Is fixed forever, younger than me:
Connubial eyes flash “love me” yet,
Down sixty years, 'till I forget
Those supple hips, nubile, nifty,
Are thirty years dead, and I am fifty.
What month, decade, what year is this?
There, sweet-faced, gentle, quiet Gene
Of the sculpted cheeks, can still be seen;
There tom-boy Doris still has charm,
Still sings and bounces, smile still warm;
And Monroe's mouth can move me still,
Though have me now she never will!
What month, decade, what year is this?
As a distant star, long dead, will glare,
You-ghosts watch you creep down the stair,
That naive, clean-faced, full-haired lad
Inside my head, looks out, half mad,
At me through my old wrinkled eyes:
The fool, enraged, still feels surprise!
My mirror is a moving film,
Never still: life is no stable realm.
1992
