mirror image

i once thought of myself as dancing gracefully through
      life's eternal ballet,
but found a white cane man groping hesitantly
      out of rhythm;

i was lean and hard, with a cassius countenance
of more hungers than can be named,
and found a gnome with a crooked leer
gaping back at me from the mirror --

his eyes wept evaporated tears,
his body cringed from imagined fears,
and his haggard face (lacking grace)
was a gargoyle grimace without warmth or wisdom.

am . . .  I . . .
locked in the catatonic recesses
of an ego-manic mind?
or was that ephemeral image
the real Me…