We walk on mirrors today just like Hamlet.
The state is as slippery as this, and just as subtle.
What contortions we must make to keep our balance!
With rosettes on our shoes we almost dance as we go.
What is the yellow bird perched on glass, is it Osric
in his folds of transparent gullery, extravagantly winged?
And what is that face in the mirror? Is it Claudius
blowing his drunken trumpet, power at the source?
The ordinary folk are sliding hither and thither.
They never look in the mirror but straight ahead of them
towards the shrunken branches, baskets clutched in their hands.