How can a mirror know itself,
like a door knows itself,
with its letting in and out
Or that sense of self felt in
the growing bones
//
A cracked mirror is du
pli
ca
tion
Its judgement silver backed in the
embellishment of my mother’s earrings
My father’s confinement to his shadow chair
A backhand
A kite slashing like a
knife to
stab
the
earth
The time to become something
Or mis align
ment
His droning voice is mine,
An understanding of sketches;
my outline,
A scribbling like trees scratched on paper,
Abstractly
Unfair to mirrors
maybe, But they infer the scratch of self,
freely
undone
Like Mars screams war, but isn’t ‘On killing’, an unloaded gun
(retorts) //
There are no answers in mirrors
They do not know to look up, Or the crow (night), fled Or what it is to be un-buried and Orienteer
‘explore fear’ lead instead,
True North
//
I will
not
bow
to
you,
(night)
Stuart McPherson is a poet from Leicester in the United Kingdom. His work is due to appear in numerous online journals and anthologies, including Beir Bua Journal and After the Pause. His debut pamphlet 'Water Bearer' will be published in December 2021 by Broken Sleep Books