revenge in broken glass

I remember it now:
your stupid revenge that time in Canada
with the green silk stockings
I was your grotesque for that hour

funny how we march through these pictures
imagining we are in a hall of mirrors
you were never much for telling me names
and I always had a list somewhere

none of it makes any sense
except for your revenge that time
but then, you already know this

I'm living those seven years bad luck
and green silks has turned to gauze
the focus slipping away

An Alison Gaughan poem from the 1970s. The pictures represent memory, and the notion of the hall of mirrors is meant to say we deceive ourselves with our memories, thinking we are still that person. The use of the term "grotesque" is homage to Leonard Cohen ("Avalanche"). The concept is that facing the real situation shatters that mirror of self-image, and the superstition about shattered mirrors is "seven years bad luck". At the end, the focus slipping, refers to the loss of information that aging causes in the brain's information retrieval system. This is another radical re-write of a poem about my relationship with the irish girl.