Ken Smith
The Trouble With Mirrors
When I must use a mirror, my mother,
full of silence resonating, reminds me
I am her son, no escape possible.
Her dowry depression, alcoholism, rage,
eye and hair color irrelevant accidents.
“Even roses have thorns,” her habitual
mantra if she accidentally noticed me.
She once smiled, I am not sure why,
not at me to whom she never spoke
by name, no matter. I read her backwards.
Her face, expressionless, offered no cues.
Her eyes, watery-blue marbles, never blinked.
Her shoulders, slumped or rigid, calmed
or frightened me, but not for long.
Her barely contained fury
leaked into teary melancholy.
With no place to hide, in defense,
I disappeared irretrievably, a finch,
crayon-yellow, dodging a pick-up,
only a matter of time. Nuns called me
when she died, wrapped tightly
in glaring white sheets, her prune
face, toothless, as usual blank.
I knew her only in her effect on me.
She refuses to disappear unless,
until I allow her to be in death
what she was to me in life,
nothing, what I see of me
whenever I must use a mirror.
Page(s) 94
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