Public Speaking

I am an orator, profound and lucid,
Before the bathroom glass
The fluency rebounds from the mirror
And arms complete the animated farce.

It is a face, vain and familiar
Seen by one other, it leers
Confident by its single sight
Undaunted by the non-existent sneers.

If a crowd could become a face
One nose, two ears and hair
As this surface reflects, I could avoid
My stumbling tongue and their foreign stare.

N. W. Bilbrough