in uncertain mirrors

you shouldn't let a mirror have
a taste of dark. it will want another face.
my mirror sometimes tranforms me
into one of my dead great uncles.
a priest in long black robes.
am i holy yet? magenta sash.
hands pressed together. in my head
a man crouches & whittles down 
a stick. i feed him twigs & branches
to keep him occupied. dungeons & dragons
is, at it's core, a game of mirrors.
i am now a dark elf with a mouth
full of dice. a computer rises
like a zombie, in the center
of my living room. i tell the computer
i have nothing to offer it & it shows me
a video of myself on youtube. 
i am speaking like a cricket
& then i become a video
of crickets devouring a rotting apple.
mandibles working the carameled flesh.
all those legs & all those angles.
the face of a priest on the head
of a cricket. all that praying.
computer then blank with overload.
i turn it on & off again 
on & off again in the hopes that it will
become the one & only television.
a commercial plays in my heart 
& i see a doctor about it via zoom call.
the doctor is actually just a professor.
he furrows his brow & says that
my writing is lacking but everytime
he tries to explain what is missing
the connection cuts out.
i unplug my finger from the wall.
the house goes dark. i am waiting
for a load of laundry to emerge 
& fresh new clothes. we used to
be lost is great huge stores.
we used to hold hands
with ourselves in dressing room mirrors.
all my dreams have price tags.
one emerges on my wrist. i yank it off
& blood leaks all over the floor.
a line-break once saved me
from my own staircases.
i am not radical enough to have
an "i" so i have several 
& i keep them in mason jars.
a film of sugar form beneath
the lid. i place one in my mouth.
this self tastes like honeydew 
& is yearning for a year ago
when you might be able to have
a conversation with neighbor 
about the shingles falling down
& turning into cardinals. 
now, i talk to spiders. we have
bargins. i flicker the face
of a priest. my fingers 
turn to yarn. pink thin threads.
i want to learn how to knit.
the spiders are social distancing
until they eat little speckled beetles.
a beatles song is playing
on the last cd player. my brother
is a priest now. his pockets
are full of crickets & communion.
i don't let him in 
through the mirror.