THE FINAL CHAPTER

Today I look inside

someone else’s mirror

to discover there an ugly

beast, an aged creature, wounded,

skin sallow and sagged,

nose a bird’s bill bent

toward the ground, intending

there to dig our grave.

His throat a plural noun

surrounded by a necklace

of frightened adjectives,

uncertain where to land

or how to choke.

How much more pacific,

he groans to me,

to look at life outside,

beyond the human

eye’s lying lens.