When I Fantasized About You in my Apartment You Weren’t Holding Two Model Boats and an Oil Painting, but Now that I’ve Seen it I Can’t Imagine it Any Other Way

First there was a blinding light and a sharp throbbing

ache in my hips that sent a crawling panic from

the base of my feet to my right eye, like when you’re sailing

through a sea of dysmorphia and a wave crashes starboard,

tipping you over into an image of yourself.

Skies can look like seas

but are they similar or merely reflections?

If stormy waters and gray skies clasp hands

then it explains why in your gray eyes I was blinded by myself.

Once you see your reflection

the self enters the mind and never leaves, although

it wasn’t myself, it was you, and I was just a supple

baby bumping face to face into someone who

always seemed to show up when passing things called mirrors.

So when I stood in front of you in my apartment,

holding two boats and an oil painting (also of a boat),

I couldn’t stop myself from looking behind you into the mirror

and seeing you/me/us expanded into infinity, the same amount of time

it feels like since you’ve entered my mind from that first flash in our eye.

Who says skies are reflections of seas?

Does one have to be reflected or can a reflection be born into infinity

when two beams meet like the horizon line or our eye lines?