SUBJECT TO SCRUTINY
In the distorting mirror of your eyes
I search myself and see no I reflected;
On that convexity the image lies
not as it seems, but seeming Other/wise.
Likeness unliked; unlike and still connected
in the distorting mirror of your eyes.
Shards of complexity re-crystallise,
dissolve, diffuse, reform, shift undetected
on that convexity. The image lies
upon, beyond, beneath. To realise
what was, is, may not be, or what’s expected
in the distorting mirror. Of your eyes’
deceptive clarity, mis/trustful, wise,
(suspend belief longed-for) we long suspected
On that convexity the image lies.
Object of my own gaze, I fantasise
The shifting self, subject and unsubjected;
On that convexity, the image lies
In the distorting mirror of your eyes.
named
Here, now, collecting the conference pack
They give me my name, in a plastic re-usable shell
(labelled DURABLE 8006), which I pin to myself.
My name locates me in something
I hardly recognise –
a family, dispersed;
a life charted by insignificant events;
a history, half-known, little understood.
I wear my name as a shield against being known.
Will I talk here? Will I be heard or seen?
I am here to absorb thoughts;
anonymous sponge
obediently museumed by a name
What am I here? a scholar? a student?
Where is the singer, the dancer,
the weaver of forms?
Well; I chose to be here,
Observer; an anonymity behind a name
At the end of the day, I return them the durable plastic
and discard my name.