Mirror, Mirror ... Who?

I drove away from the road
And climbed into the back seat.
I lit a cigarette and watched
The smoke curling round.
I looked in the mirror
And saw a face; it smiled, querulously. 
I smiled back.
"Is it I?" I asked,
"Encased in that two-dimensional world of yours?"
"Yes," the mirror replied
"Since I am you."
"But you only show a picture," said I. 
"Yes," the mirror replied
"Since you are but a picture."
"I am more than that," I hoped.
"Yes," the mirror confirmed,
"Since you think that you are."
"But other people think that too," I remarked.
"Yes," the mirror repeated,
"Since there are no other people."
"There are no other people?" I repeated.
 "Yes," the mirror repeated,
"Since I see no other people,
And I am you." 
"Thus I am you?" I repeated, reversedly,
Wonderingly.

 

30 March 1971 The first of a whole batch of writing I did sitting in 'The Cardinal', my 1957 Wolseley 1500, parked in The Booksellers' Retreat, Kings Langley at the end of my second term at St Andrews University.