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REFLECTION SUGGESTED BY GUSTAV COURBET'S PAINTING 'THE HAPPY LOVERS'
This strange notion that
another face could be
my face - mine
to hold in my hand,
to kiss, to stare,
freely and boldly
into the eyes -
I have always been scared
of other peoples' eyes -
scared, or perhaps I should better say
overawed, and here it is said
that this godlike image should be
somehow mine, that I should be
two-faced?
This is a gift
too big for me.
I cannot handle it.
Sooner than those
glistening, three
dimensional eyes, I would
rather stare
deeply, longingly, into
those other
flat, two-dimensional
eyes that will never
ever
belong to me.