Mirror Man

Mirror Man stands in the square,
Grinning like a pennant.

He says:
“We’re drowning in other voices.”
“It was the West, not the East, who lit the fuse.”
“We want our country back.”
He says these things
and the air grows smaller.

The Mirror Man — the Prince of Othering —
raises his pint glass,
and the crowd mistakes it for light.

The people in the square
want work,
want dignity,
want bread that tastes of wheat,
not dust.
They listen anyway.

He shows them the mirror:
their fear looks back,
and they think it is love.

He does not see us.
He sees only himself.
And he calls that self the country.
And calls that echo the people.

Ukrainian mothers
are digging in the ground.
Not for roots,
but for their children.
And the Mirror Man calls it politics.

Across the sea
he drinks with strangers,
bows to their cameras,
borrows their gods.
The applause of the rich
fades in his empty hands.

And here,
his words fall as stones.
His broken glass fills the streets.
And we navigate through his debris.

He tells us we are pure.
He tells us to close the gate.
He tells us this is freedom.
And many believe him.
Because hate
is easier to carry than hope.

Brothers, sisters —
this is how a nation forgets itself:
first the jokes,
then the cheers,
then the silence.

Muted.

When the Mirror Man comes to rule,
he will not need soldiers.
He will have our reflections.

And one day
the children of this country
will dig in our own ground,
looking for the truth
we buried with our naïve laughter.