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 lone hair 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 couldn't see my face
in a puddle beside a barn,
but in it's black reflectance,
the stars and galaxies overhead
gleamed backwards,
a universe reversed,
and I was calmed.
