The Review Mirror by David M. Harris

The Review Mirror
by
David M. Harris

Rarely, soapy-handed, I stop

and look. Who is that?

I've seen that face

in pictures, younger,

smiling, hair dark and glossy.

Wrinkles covered by

beard and bifocals, I might pass

for fifty.

In pictures from my first wedding,

just a decade and a half ago, just yesterday.

Slimmer, touched with gray,

without glasses.

At my sister's seder

the day before yesterday

trim, with moustache waxed and a head

full of grand, grandiose dreams.

The wax sits on a shelf in the closet.

Where are the dreams?

Smaller visions seep into their emptied space.

Play center field for the Yankees? Cancel that.

Make a family? Enter a check mark.

Tear up the Pulitzer acceptance speech.

Write a poem?

Add up the score.

Subtract the losses.

Rinse off the past.

Start the next day.

This poem first appeared in My Poem Rocks (2009).
Used here with the author's permission.

Until 2003, David M. Harris had never lived more than fifty miles from New York City. Since then he has moved to Tennessee, acquired a daughter and a classic MG, and gotten serious about poetry. His work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies and his first collection, The Review Mirror, was published by Unsolicited Press in 2013.

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ckparry@pipeline.com:
A perfect poem - becoming older can be beautiful when there are poets like you. Cindy
Posted 07/17/2011 10:02 PM

Eiken:
Wonderful poem David, thank you for sharing it with us.
Posted 07/17/2011 10:45 AM

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