For Aaron Poochigian

This wall of glass

Holds all that we may see of truth,

Compacting depths to surfaces that pass

Before us like a twirl of dress or chin

Grown stout and grizzled, when lost youth

Reflects in skin.

So many turn

Away from what they would deny,

But then glance back, as if some urge to learn

Our shining imperfections had possessed us;

We lean close till they fill the eye

And have undressed us.

So, who could blame

False Rita Hayworth with her gun,

Who, multiplied in funhouse mirrors, takes aim

And shatters glass as if it all were lies,

Her liberty, alas, undone

With its demise?

But, centuries

Ago, the early scientists

Marked how appearances seemed treacheries

That could, by brilliant theories, be saved;

The rainbow gradually untwists,

Its myths all waived.

And yet, we sense

The real is not confined to glass,

With whose first contact we commence

And pass with curious Alice through its plane

To find a world steeped dense with mass

No light could feign.