MORNING

​

It is 7am and I am trying to fix my face.

 

At its edges, hair

winds into disobedient inchworms.

​

Beneath the eyes, dark circles 

reveal the suffering of an insomniac.

​

Behind lips, big teeth -- 

overbearing mother-in-laws,

who butt in at every opportunity.

​

On the nose, freckles persist --

an ant colony whose foot soldiers 

rise again and again

through the clean of the surface

despite all efforts at eradication.

 

Who invented the mirror, I do not know.

But I am Narcissus, bent to my own reflection,

reading it each morning 

with the grimace with which one reads

bad fiction;

​

mouth downturned, brows depressed

in veiled fascination. 

​