“Who’d have thought tomorrow / would be so strange” —REM

Everyone gives a good hard look, now and again
into the mirror, good and hard and long enough
to see a glimpse of a stranger—
and that right there, that’s the face of
tomorrow,
because that is going on right now,
beyond memory’s wavefront
now is the tomorrow of memory
and we all remember ourselves
in a rougher draft
than what the mirror presents.

And yes, mirrors are fraught,
often used to describe love,
or the lack thereof,
but remember Narcissus didn’t even recognize
the person he saw in the lake…
…he reminds me of Li Po the Chinese
poet and drunkard (if that’s not redundant)
who reached out to embrace the moon’s reflection
in the Yangtze River
and drown; I like to hope
in his last moment he finally got a taste
of moonlight in water—was it as sweet as wine?

But we were talking
about the face of tomorrow
and I guess if Li Po left
any kind of a lesson
beyond a beer mug or bong
it’s to embrace drowning
in the moon,
to peel the image off the mirror, and
stick it to your face,
like a Cracker Jack tattoo,
and dive head first into that water
cold and clear and breathless
breaking against the beach beneath you
that tide as it rushes
spray and salt and grit
that tide as it advances
torrential
into tomorrow.