The Review Mirror by David M. Harris

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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.

David M. Harris has, as he puts it, has "spent a lot of time with words." Working as an editor, author, publicist, college professor, and sundry other positions in the publishing, film, and educational industries, words have been a focal point of David’s life. As a New Yorker with an MFA in fiction, he claims it’s only logical that he lives in Tennessee and writes poetry, now that he is semi-retired.

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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