-portrait of a mirror selfie taken inside Yayoi Kusama’s “infinite mirrors” exhibit-

Inside a green box of mirrors, we are side
by side and you are taller than me. I wonder
do you not like that about me?
You’re wearing the special wool jacket
I loved, one of a kind alternating
red and black and grey. Arrows on it.
Was this the last time I ever saw you in it?
I’m in grey baseball tee with the
jellyfish. And my trippy purple
and blue trucker hat from work with pins
on it. Black skinny jeans.

Our copies stretch forevermore all sides
reverberating into murky green darkness
which is the future. And past. It is so
amphibian how we are now both
underwater and on land. I’ve been having
trouble breathing lately, especially around you.
It’s a tricky business trying not to take
up too much space while still hoping
you see me like the couples in the mirror.

Little white tubers with tiny red spots litter
around our feet and grow themselves
in the population of mirrors.
I am reminded of everlasting strawberry
meadows as I ask myself about forever
holding my phone up so the camera
catches us together.

The ceiling speaks of fluorescence
like back in school when I asked
a girl under the tires at recess
and asked her to marry me.
She looked at the plastic ring I offered
her. I’d gotten it from a machine at the drug
store for a quarter. She took the ring
and threw it in the dirt.
I stayed under until the bell rang, bitter
silent damp under my eyes.

We stand side by side. You are taller.
You and I both hold our phones
up to the mirror at the same level.
Who are all these people?
We have talked so many times about otherlives.
I’m eternally jealous of your memory
of yours. How many tries to get this right?
I wonder what you are seeing while we look
at the same thing. The air hums
like another moment I remember
so well.