Philip Haskell
DOPPELGANGER
Again sometime inJune, a street,
Empty, with traffic lights changing,
Someone has probably seen it here before,
That one glove in winter
From time to time on lobby floors or sidewalks,
Or that telephone, ringing and ringing in a telephone
booth.
Word in someone' s pocket
May have been here always,
All summer, on cancelled stamps
Bringing it nearer, though the wavy lines
Did not hint of this,
And never once brought face
to
face
Did it show up, at least to me,
In the mud flats of a dead mirror,
No. With August now it's here again,
Or still, and why this cake,
The child among the shadows,
Or what it means this time,
Don't ask. The light
From twenty-nine candles fills the room.
