They follow me from pole to pole, a million mugs that vex –
two witless eyes, a mustache droop – there’s no escape, I swear!
The umlaut on the same key as the accent circonflexe !
hot on my trail from there to here and back again to there!
Don’t sermon me on tricks of light, on chance, on bumps in plaster.
I know about such accidents and imperfections, knots in wood,
or sweaty ring from whiskey glass or Clorox-linked disaster.
Those can’t explain such accuracy, I only wish I could. . .
Photograph them? Paint them? That never seems to work!
No, when unabashed intruders think of barging in on me,
those modes of reproduction never reproduce the quirk –
that seeing beyond seeing that I somehow always see!
Yes, I know they’re mere reflections, less significant you’d think,
than the one I saw this morning, yawning, there above the sink.
.
.
The Classical Deinhardt 