Stranger

I caught a glimpse of me today

Or thought I did

But that can’t be me, the empty professional smile

The eyes dull ,lifeless, unbeguiled

Unkempt hair, no purpose in her stance

Looking again, backwards, discreetly

but still I can’t quite decide

She looks like someone half remembered that perhaps I used to know

Whom I passed on the stairs somewhere

Or glanced at, inwardly mocking her ill fortune, on a train or bus or

In the street, somewhere anonymous

Her non response, unseeing, unimportant

A depiction of some other unrecognisable humanity

Someone disengaged from life or love

Inactively dispossessed of energy or faith

It makes me smile to think I imagined her me

That this two dimensional apparition bore

Any semblance of what I think I nowadays seem to be

But those eyes, that vacant downturned smile

Speak directly to something inside

And I shudder, wondering what premonition brings her here

To taunt me, tease me make me fear

I look back again, but she just won’t disappear.