Words Reflecting off the Window

Pleased with yourself? No one will
Ever see you as you are

Now, typing at the table,
Purring kitten under chin,

Crescent moon in lavender
And peach winter sky outside.

Digital music’s playing
Something soothing from machines.

You’re thinking of poetry
Other than these lines, other

Than your quiet moment now,
Those anguished poems on the shelf

Behind you, composed by lives
In languages loathed and loved,

Translated into language
They never knew, never was

When they wrote of how poorly
They wrote in conquerors’ tongues.

The words evolve. Those poets
And those dialects are dead.

This language emerged from wars
Conducted after they went.

Poets colonized by words
Still have to choose which to use.

Cimafiejeva’s phrases,
Translated, have joined the shelf,

Words twice removed from her self.
Within decades, someone else.

No one will ever see you
Reflected outside tonight.