Mirror, mirror on the wall; mirror, mirror on the J-Bar wall, why are you so high on that wall? Why in the bar at all; I don’t get it.  I look in the mirror and see only the past, and me sitting here smelling the beer.

C’mon Jack, it’s the middle of the morning and you here worrying about a mirror; you’ll be going home to the woman smelling of beer yourself.

“There are mornings

when everything brims with promise,

even my empty cup.”    Jim Harrison/Ted Kooser

 Brims with promise? What promise can there be from the past?

“The pungency of loneliness

clings thicker than stale

beer and more rancid

 If you don’t want to look at the past, don’t want  to see how what was then has become now, then STOP STARING AT THE MIRROR.

The mirror draws me back, and back.