NewPoetry

Gary Barwin

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The other-silver, the dimensionless aluminium-backed Kabbalah.

Heat to a thousand degrees until the voice is melted. Liquify the hands, the face and the mouth. The hand-filled torso.

The soul of the ventriloquist’s dummy is first sand then glass, then a mirror.

You move through air as every day. Your body made of steps and breathing, spit and regret. Heart thumping like a Disney rabbit.

Ventriloquist in one room. Dummy in another. The invisible hinge of light. Infolded world in the millimetres of glass between them. The not-shadow of their separate reflected lives.

Come here often?

Often as you.

Why is it your lips are moving?

Because yours are.

I live in the silver world.

It’s my world, but reversed.

Let’s try an experiment. Be sad.

I always am.

Ok. But why doesn’t that make me happy?

It’s not opposite day.

Silver is an invisible fog. A reverse shadow.

Are you trying to see if that makes sense to me?

[embarrassed] Yes.

*

When I speak…

Yes?

You say the same thing at the same time.

I do?

[Both at the same time] For each word said, an equal and opposite word.

Now you’re messing with me.

Now, you’re messing with me.

*

There’s something metaphysical about speaking to one’s reflection.

One’s own image.

The Vladimir to one’s Estragon.

The Melania to one’s own Trump.

Let’s not go there.

I won’t if you won’t.

It’s like playing with one’s own shadow.

Trying to outrun it.

But it’s always there, unless you’re Peter Pan.

I’m not.

Me neither.

*

I look forward to being my own ghost?

Because?

No reflection.

Better to be a vampire.

But all that blood.

But we’d look good in a cape.

*

There’s something metaphysical about brushing one’s teeth or shaving.

You mean looking at yourself?

At you. The right-to-left dummy of myself.

How do you know which of us is you?

I use language.

So do I.

If I punch the mirror, do I not bleed?

Me, too.

But you fragment.

You also.

I carry me around when you’re not there.

But so do I. Listen to my whispers.