I'Ll Clearly Disappear Poem by Glenn Bagshaw

I’m in my great-grandmother's old photo album
from ninety years ago, and I seem much the same.
Sure, I'm gloss-finished, black and white, and yes, some frayed.
Yet not so bad for my age. Looking much like her,
it's almost that I'm not just myself as the flow
of generations are now gathered, like the seas.
Much the same in one life, as photos make childhood
quicken once again. One picture's an aperture
to these past worlds. Once more boats sound in harbour's night.
Through the window, from a distance, someone slowly
tries keys of a piano. The sound fades on air.


I’m in bed and the woman, from that long ago,
who was my mother recites once more from something
known as 'Alice In the Looking Glass', then I sleep.
But I awaken in darkness, the silent stop
of darkness. I'm alone in the room, so I rise
and the edge of moonlight's blue beams bathe the mirror-
Look, see! Completely caught! I view myself standing
lost and lunar pale- as those in photo albums
that none remember are lost in drawers, while grinning
forever, while forever robbed of the world's light.


My hands can't touch mirrors. I may become polished
surface only, some floating image or else fall
through impossible realms. I must peer, so afraid
and stare and stare. Harbour boats, thrust in night shadows
move to still deeper darkness, throbbing a bass note
through my heart. I'm chilled to grimness for I'm aware,
in me everything's born, then lives, and falls away.
If I turn from that pull, ignore the killing crush
of mirror- I can't ever! then all disappears!