Tai-Chi for Better Balance

Today I practiced
tai-chi in front of a mirror
with a dozen beginners my age.
I didn't apologize
as I thought I might.
Strange
to pick out the
reflexively familiar.
Icon I,
seen from the outside.
Some of us
would have commanded
with our harrumph-ity eyes
if rumples were smoothed
but now we listen.
They lined up like this
in many old photographs of
unsymmetric faces
unceremonious bodies,
dignities clinginging to fact.