Hall of Mirrors

Sometimes I am the director's actor. Sometimes the doll that plays into the hands of little girls, taking pleasure in being the part of them that they want to disown. I seem to be an echo, a reverberation, a response that plays out later, the ghost of an action. What is my own? How can I say? Some would say I am I because of you. I would say I am you. I am the hall of mirrors in a thoroughfare. And you, they, the center of it.

To be or to be more

To do more with my life -

The sky above my head

stretches its belly,

hungry for more.

The earth beneath my feet

crumbles, cracks,

makes space for the new

The wind keeps pushing me back

So I push harder, stronger.

To be or to be more

That is the question.

Wrapping Paper

In ten minutes
I will throw into the bin
the wrapping paper
the cardboard box
the bubbled plastic
that safely ensconced and escorted
your loving gift
to my table
Memorablia clutters my cupboard
Which has very little room
for the extraneous
Yet for these ten minutes
I shall let these lie on my table
partly in gratitude
partly in guilt
and in the hope that they become
a part of me
before I say goodbye