Through Mirrors

by Brett Rutherford

  I play you through mirrors,  

angled dreamt visions of you  

I catch in candlelight

    halfway across the crowd-cafe

  you are fun-house warped to me

  so close I can almost touch

  each peach-fuzz hair on your cheek.

    You are all there, from head  

long-haired, to slender foot,  

leaner than ever, as thin  

as depth of glass. If I

    touch this, will you yield

  to my phantom?    

I send a ghost-messenger

  to follow your double home.

    There you go. There, with you,

  she (whatever she you deign

  to possess this evening)

  leans on your shoulder.

    My mirror self will follow.

  When he returns

  I'll reap the grief  of his report.

  Your kind  can only be wooed that way.

    You do not see me looking,

  longing. You lurk in corridors

       of cold seduction,

  between the mercury and glass.