We sit at our dressing table.
We lean against our sinks.
We peer into our mirrors
to stare at the line in our forehead
that wasn’t there yesterday.
We see the gray encroaching
as the blonde, the black, the brunette
has faded or fallen to the floor.
We try to find our past selves
in our present faces.
But they are gone.
We are here now
as we are now,
not as we were then.

The opposite also is true.

We cannot hold a mirror
to our Past
and expect to see our faces
reflecting back at us.

The Past had different wrinkles,
different blemishes,
different beauty,
with the painted dot on the cheek
where we would use a cream
to erase the flaw.

We cannot demand our past
to look like our today
or to think our thoughts as we do
or to say as we would say.