Howard F. Stein
The Mirror
Mounted on a wall,
A large wood frame
Once held a mirror.
We stood and sat before it,
Recognized ourselves.
The inside frame
Now lined with jagged glass,
Is what’s left of the mirror,
Scattered debris,
Shattered fragments,
On the floor below.
We still approach the empty frame
To seek ourselves,
Hoping the mirror
Will be restored.
But it never is—
Only sharp pieces
Of fallen glass.
Nothing and no one
Remain to be seen.
We have disappeared.
Howard F. Stein, is the author, most recently, of the poetry collections Centre and Circumference (MindMend Publishing Co., 2018), and Light and Shadow, second edition (Doodle and Peck Publishing, 2018). Stein is professor emeritus in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, where he taught for nearly 35 years. He is poet laureate of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology.
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