We meet our face within the glass each day,
Yet never glimpse the deeper self inside;
We cleanse the mirror, wipe the dust away,
But leave the stains the hidden heart would hide.
We mark the speck that on the surface lies,
Yet miss the grime that clings to thought and will;
The glass reveals the pimple to our eyes,
Not sins that shape the soul and keep us still.
It charts the curve of bone and fleeting grace,
The fragile frame that time will soon erase;
But cannot trace the shadowed inner place
Where guilt and greed and secret grief encase.
So stands the mirror-tragic, cold, and clear,
A guilty knife that wounds, yet cannot sear.
The writer is a poet
