Mirror

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful -

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles.
I have looked at it so long

I think it is a part of my heart.
But it flickers.

Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake.
A woman bends over me,

Searching my reaches for what she really is.

Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.

I see her back and reflect it faithfully.

She rewards me with tears and the agitation of hands.

I am important to her.
She comes and goes.

Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman

Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.