The photograph of course meant eternity. But an eternity of petrification of preservation in a chemical bath a removal from the cycle of biblical umbilical brutality the begetting endlessly begetting merging diverging ploughing over the last generation's grave and when one day I cut the cord and suddenly my daughter a separate person and when one day the cord caught me and my feet dangling dangerously until I said enough not yet and when one day we take the cord and make the atom a galaxy of cord and discord well then I've had my say my day in the Sun that to be frank hasn't done a dang thing for my complexion and in the mirror to my drooping eyes I say you may as well admit you'd have been as well aborted as well never conceived an inconceivable mess with your overused eyes and overgrown fingernails oh look out of yourself dear one look and listen and care for others powder your nose and paint your lips but don't meet your eye in the mirror because as in the night sky the glassy lake the abyss stares back and invites you if you only let yourself fall let your self fall to the nothing blackness the nothing nothingness the bright fickle moment flickers in the musty dampness of posterity the archiveable woman suspended from a clothesline in a dark room and carefully pressed in plastic sheets primping your white hair and asking could you hold the mirror just there yes that's right dear oh it looks all right do you think it's fine fine yes I know it's fine I mean who are you trying to impress anyhow who gives a damn how it all looks in the end they look in your eyes and see only their own reflections
