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Hello again, my sad-faced friend, how goes it?
Have things gone so awry?
Your hangdog look inevitably shows it
But I just ape you, cannot ask you why.

Your glares, your smiles, these I can mime precisely;
I give back nod for nod,
Cloned widdershins to imitate you nicely,
Obedient acolyte to you my god.

Now at first light you stand before me shaving,
Displeased with what you see:
And I, compelled, your surly humour braving,
Glower back at you each time diurnally.

But when you turn away, can you be certain
That I have done the same?
How if the glass were no more than a curtain,
And I your doppelganger in a frame?

How if my life were yours in the reversal,
So that, for all your cranks,
I were performance, you the mere rehearsal,
Yours the cold credit, mine the warm-felt thanks?

How if the love you missed I were enjoying
On this, the actual stage,
Or of the virtues you were not deploying
I were practitioner from youth to age?

Be very glad that I am merely shadow,
That you can still decree
From your side of this strange, precarious window
The things un-bodied yet that yet can be.

You turn to take your day. I stand unmoving.
Do you seem glad or grave?
Well, go your way. Today there’s no disproving.
You never turn around - to see me wave!

© Colin Bailey, February 2009