Vanity’s Reflection
by Odin Roark

IT comes in all sizes and shapes,
often by storefront window,
vanity compact,
even orphaned puddles,
usually delicately defiant,
as one’s nature arrests,
arisen unexpectantly
beneath winds of praise,
heat of scorn,
swirls of dervish awareness
revealing the tenacious blur
of truth’s honor.

IT lures by smile,
stroking time’s mystery
of unresolved convictions,
indecision struggles,
hoping tomorrow will pass
without IT’s ambush-fini.

Even in sleep…

Knowing’s conundrum vacillates,
right toys with wrong,
wrong seduces right,
judgment contemplates,
passion’s floodbanks struggle,
stifling security’s breath.

As sunrise beckons…

Reality breathes a lonely awakening,
wounds tenuously closed,
now reopen by nature’s genetic memory,
knowing nocturnal respite
prepares but for another daytime test.

With morning’s brightness,
IT retreats for now,
residual dust,
clay,
bone,
smoke and ash,
coat the bars,
behind which legend’s spears,
knives and guns,
stand vigil for
the IT of US,
the US of IT.

Time’s message continues
a bubble-wrapped transit,
contents marked “fragile,”
as the knowing of oneself
remains an ever-changing split image,
awaiting true essence to transcend vanity’s reflection.