He Walks into Lucas Samaras’s Cube of Reflections, Looking Glasses in Every Direction Inside
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Why was I born among mirrors?
The daylight revolves around me.
And the night herself repeats me
in all her constellations.
~ Lorca, “Song of the Barren Orange Tree” (“Canción del Naranjo seco”)
He steps as innocent as white on white
When, click, the mirrored door goes closed behind
Him, other views shut then. His every sight
Is of himself. All other views are blind.
He stares above and sees one body, face
And nothing more, yet each repeated, time
And time, yes, time and time again, each space
Above, below, to front and back, a crime
Unfolding, then confirmed to right and left.
From every angle are infinities
Of just himself. At last he feels the heft
Of measureless [trapped] masculinities.
A googoling of trinities cannot
Have been as bad as this unending blot.
~ Phillip Whidden