I Love Her But She Loves Someone Else

  When a man of my age shaves his face in the morning,

   who is it stares back and greets him?

   The ghost of his father long dead all these years?

   Or the boy that he was, still wet in the ears?

   Or the terrible sum of all of his fears

   In the eyes of this stranger who meets him?

  So his glance rarely strays from his chin or his jawline

   to face up to the truth of his soul.

   It's the eyes he avoids, so afraid to aknowledge

   something strange, unexpected, out of control.

   There are times when a man needs to brave his reflection

   and face what he sees without fear.

   It takes a man to accept his mortality

   or be surprised by the presence of a tear.

   It was only an arrangement, a practical arrangement.

   I forgot the first commandment of the realist's handbook.

   Don't be fooled by illusions you created yourself

   And fall in love with someone when she loves someone else.