I am sitting at our dining room table, across from the cabinet
that holds our family treasures. The glass door and panels allow
me to see crystal goblets, Italian glass, ceramics, a silver mirror
set on its side to catch the light, cheap things barely treasure,
simple sentiments made real. Now, my reflection is overlaid
upon these objects, transparent in the glass face of the cabinet.
The room I’m in faces another, second room in the cabinet.
Within it a doorway leads to a living room and past that
a door that leads outside. There is a window in that door,
reflected in the glass of the cabinet door, and again within
the silver hand mirror. Each holds a miniature picture
of a window to that world, reversed behind me. The thought
of another world waiting to be seen through that window
fills me with inexplicable fear. I want a photograph to exhibit,
that captures this moment of apprehension, this only chance
to look through a window into another world. I want to be sure
everything in that world, waiting outside that door is pictured.
All of it, crammed within that little window, reflected in this glass
passing through my image, captured and displayed within this cabinet
of treasures, so I can’t tell where I end or another world begins.