Conversations with Mirrors

I found him in the library
with Emily Dickinson
in one hand
and Sylvia Plath
in the other.

He told me
he was searching for answers;
that the path
he'd been following all his life
suddenly seemed made up
of liars
and cheaters
and hookers
and scams.

Reaching out
to take a book from his grasp,
I murmured something
about Freud
and Derrida
and being haunted by the trace
of all the things we'll never be.

When I looked back up,
I was talking
to my mirror
in bathrobe and hair curlers,
the steam
from my shower
enveloping me.

And maybe
it doesn't make much sense now,
but every book of poetry I own
is littering my bedroom floor
with the pages ripped out.