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When the mirror paints itself,
how quietly it sits.
Its posing is perfect.
But when it paints us,
no matter how hard we try,
eventually
we fail to be still.
What if we propped a corpse up
for model: even it
would fidget
after a while;
the flesh would droop then drop,
spoiling the sitting
by spoiling.
No: only the mirror itself
can pose properly
for its incisive portraits,
which then mock our mortal
impatience—
Displayed everywhere,
they are the walls we live in,
they make a museum of us.
Our provenance (if any)
comes from them.
And no expert needs
to authenticate
those masterworks.
We are the forgeries.
We are the fakes.
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