Old and sick, you turn away from mirrors, whether 
They show the mocking face years have stained and withered 
Or reflection quails at the coward's mean gesture. 
Images of body and soul. What is the soul? 
A feather blown by odd weathers of shine, of shade. 
And the body? Is shaper and shape of the soul. 
Sick, the pair live by the clock in a placeless time. 
Old, they live in a futureless place, where odors 
And a few fragrances are lingering features. 
Hard to remember, the shape before it was fixed 
As it will be in death, and as hard to believe 
The remembered was once pure possibility. 
In our grandparents' days, not blind superstition 
But the love that illumines reason required that, 
After a death in the house, mirrors be covered.