Poem of the Week: Lines on a Glass

for Marie Macklin

Surely both will come to grief,
The outward and the inward show
Reflected darkly in a glass,
For sometimes mirrors tell the truth:
That all the world’s a silver stage,
The final act will come to pass.
This frame of coloured bulbs that lit
A lined face, its greying hair,
The sag and pinch and puff of age
One by one will flicker out
And time that gave becomes a thief,
Behind the mask of age the youth
Looks bleary at the knowledge there:
You know you see; you see you know.

Padraig Rooney has published three books of poems, and a bilingual selection titled Angelandet / Landing Craft came out from Wolfbach (Zurich) in 2017.