Mirror Images - Peter Hammill

If I’m the mirror and you’re the image

then what’s the secret between the two,

these «me"s and «you"s, how many can there be?

Oh, I don’t mind all that around the place,

as long as you keep it

well away from me.

I’ve begun to regret

that we ever met between the dimensions.

It gets such a strain

to pretend that the change is anything but cheap;

with your infant pique and your angst pretensions

sometimes you act like such a creep.

And now I’m standing in the corner,

looking at the room and the furniture

in cheap imitation of alienation and grief.

And now we’re going to the kitchen,

fix ourselves a drink and a cigarette,

getting no closer to being the joker or thief.

Still, I reflect,

this nervous wreck who stands before me

can see as well,

can surely tell that he’s not yet free;

he can turn aside, but can no more ignore me

than know which one of us is he,

than tell what we are going to be,

than know which one of us is me.

And now we’re going to the kitchen,

fix ourselves a drink and a cigarette,

getting no closer to being the joker or thief.

These mirror images,

these mirror images won’t stay,

these mirror images go away,

these mirror images are no help.

In these mirror images of myself

there are no secrets.