When you don’t know what you brought with you,
You can’t be sure you aren’t forgetting something,
But there is nothing else – and if there is, it’s not irreplaceable.
The first time the words must be written on the mirror somehow,
A curse or an admonition,
Sneaking out,
Rising in a tight spiral.
From Matt Ruff’s “Set This House in Order” – a novel about living with multiple personality disorder, and tour de force of narrative voice in which the lines between the characters are both blurred and yet somehow as crisp as recognizing yourself in the mirror. I love how the words become slippery, just eluding the grasp of comprehension, but yet suggesting familiarity, and anxiety… –Joe Burns
Poems From Page 143 