Mirror We Cannot Be

What’s the most intimate
Thing we can offer —
Give to another

Our nakedness —
Complete, exposed
Perhaps
But what the other holds
Is only a glimpse
A memory
A surface image

Could it be being —
Presence
Attention

Close —
But even that
Is neither ours
Nor truly shared
Nor a thing
It belongs
To what’s most intimate
In the other —
What they already are

What if we had a mirror —
One they could gaze into
Anytime, anywhere —
And see themselves
As they are
Exactly so

But that mirror —
We don’t have
Nor can it be us
Always there
Beside the other

Then —
Might words be
The most intimate gifts
We have to offer

Words —
That free others
To be

Who they are
Who they’ve always been