In this house of mirrors
there are no mirrors, no;
but windows of time
that elope us and seizure.
Spiders, drowned, that will
"swim with the fishes"

but first, dangled and dropped
from such great heights
onto the striped hood
of this carousel,
in marshes and ditches

in which they are dragged
by their umbiblical cords,
ankles first, into the uterus of Hell,
an embryo that resembled
you as a child.

And yet, I still hang you
above me, like a chandelier
or trophy; stuffed animal head,
and where the baubles
of Christmas past reflect light
on your yellowed, cracked neck

and how the dissonant chords
of candlelight filter off,
but never splicing
the surface of the surface of man,
rebounding off the body,
Pandora's box, instead.