Different Girl

Window pane I am seeing her through
is cloudy

View obscured by
dust
fatigue
the pane
sighs

Different girl...
I tell the stories
of someone whom I must have known well
and
somehow it seems like
as
I tell those stories
She is both very near
yet
Very, very far away.

West wind blows
Away, away some of the
dust from the pane
and I can see her
dressed up for a party,
of the more refined type...
Hair done up, not a one out of place...
dress chosen with care
and jacket shoes, necklace earings
Finery for an enchanted night...
The magic of a dimly lit
Semiformal gathering, as coats are left hanging in the coat check
And women and men leave the exhilerating cold
at the door
to enter a night
of small talk and dancing and drinks and awards and well wishes...

Uniform, pressed...shoes, meticulous..., self....meaningless, perhaps too willing to answer to the beck and call...
Self is always meaningless
Until it is changing
and then
meaningful at last
in the shattering of
the looking-glass...

broken glass upon the floor
obscures the face
of the lover, the angel, the worker the friend
the daughter the sister the brother the man
the woman the family the child the elder the younger
shattered...

wrinkles are like
cracks in a vase, now...
on the face of a different girl...

like looking in a shattered mirror
someone else
distorted (?)
looks back...
but if there were not still some remnant
of the other girl
there would be no image left at all...
for who would be looking into the mirror
or out of those eyes?

The broken glass always tells
a story
many lips moving
in chaotic splendour
broken glass speaks
in a breaking voice
the same story
again
and again...
the stories of another girl...
an eye in a shard here, a cheek visiable there...reflections
of your memories
as you seek familiarity
amongst the broken mirror
and fail to see the totality
gained by gazing into a single shard
a single facet
and by looking carefully,
start to see
the face looking back is one laden
with familiarity...

each shard shows a different view
of the same girl...
it is all a matter of looking
and getting the angle right, again...

perhaps the girl has not changed a bit
only others perspectives of her?
Or, if everyone could shift their gaze just a little bit
would they comprehend more
of her, and thus have grown and changed themselves
to meet her half-way?

I tell this different girl's stories...they are not quite mine, but they are the same...