This is a house of mirrors in every room
Serving to correct my mental self image
Faced with a reflection of how others see me
Though I mostly evade making eye contact
As if to avoid staring at a stranger
Glancing away when they look at me
As if I do not inhabit that body
Seen on a glass surface across the room
But I look back in the privacy of the bathroom
Examining the familiar multicolored eyes
Black pupil inside brown inner ring and outer green
Born the child of brown and blue-eyed people
Stepping out of the shower stall naked
Confronted with a full body mirror image
This is no youthful frame standing there
With a bit of paunch that can’t be denied
I see the deepening creases in my aging face
And feel the unfamiliar slack skin in my cheeks
Pausing a moment on the cusp of acceptance
Readily forgotten when I leave that room
