Mirror mirror

Mommy's pink lucite framed mirror

lay on the floor.

my one eyed teddy bear

ignored.

The ceiling of the living

room was down there,

at the bottom of the pool.

If I could but touch it,

or clutch the hem of Alice's skirt

to pull me in, I'd follow Orpheus

through the dissolving entrance

to his underworld.

Instead.

Each morning the mirror

corroborates another step

on the journey to join the dead.

-

The girl walking down the street

looks up from her phone

to check her presentation

in the noon reflection

of every store front window,

tucks a strand behind an ear,

takes the opportunity

to assess her rear.

-

One night,

so long ago that now...

I walked through

the empty town of Dachau.

no cars, no people, no breeze

to stir the leaves in the heavy

moonless midnight air.

no money in my pocket

for a meal or or a bed,

I kept walking, scared.

out past

the last few lights of town.

I stepped into a field

looking for a place to sleep

under a tree or beside a shed.

so dark that i could not see my face

in a puddle beside a barn,

but in it's black reflectance,

the stars and galaxies

gleamed backwards,

a universe reversed,

and I was calmed.