Waiting For My Turn At The Deli Counter

I learned that the reason mirrors are
covered during the week of mourning death
is that our broken hearts make us
susceptible to negative forces that ghosts of
ill will exert through the mirror world.

These imps are ever-present, apparently, but they
don’t affect us unless we glimpse their
wretched forms lurking in the background of
our own reflections. Keep the limelight on
the family members of the recently buried.

I see these Hieronymus Bosch deformities crouching in
corners when I defog my bathroom mirror.
They’re visible to me in restaurants and
airport lounges that use mirrors to make
me feel the weight of some illusory largeness.

Who am I to question this wise man
waiting for lox? His hermeneutic road of
quirky, unresolvable questions allows, like mirrors do,
worlds with or without evil, depending on
whether we choose to shield our eyes.
(July 2026)