Day 21: Article

Tricks with Mirrors by Margaret Atwood

 It's no coincidence
 this is a used
 furniture warehouse.

 I enter with you
 and become a mirror.

 Mirrors
 are the perfect lovers,

 that's it, carry me up the stairs
 by the edges, don't drop me,

 that would be back luck,
 throw me on the bed

 reflecting side up,
 fall into me,

 it will be your own
 mouth you hit, firm and glassy,

 your own eyes you find you
 are up against closed closed

 There is more to a mirror
 than you looking at

 your full-length body
 flawless but reversed,

 there is more than this dead blue
 oblong eye turned outwards to you.

 Think about the frame.
 The frame is carved, it is important,

 it exists, it does not reflect you,
 it does not recede and recede, it has limits

 and reflections of its own.
 There's a nail in the back

 to hang it with; there are several nails,
 think about the nails,

 pay attention to the nail
 marks in the wood,

 they are important too.

 Don't assume it is passive
 or easy, this clarity

 with which I give you yourself.
 Consider what restraint it

 takes: breath withheld, no anger
 or joy disturbing the surface

 of the ice.
 You are suspended in me

 beautiful and frozen, I
 preserve you, in me you are safe.

 It is not a trick either,
 it is a craft:

 mirrors are crafty.

 I wanted to stop this,
 this life flattened against the wall,

 mute and devoid of colour,
 built of pure light,

 this life of vision only, split
 and remote, a lucid impasse.

 I confess: this is not a mirror,
 it is a door

 I am trapped behind.
 I wanted you to see me here,


 say the releasing word, whatever
 that may be, open the wall.

 Instead you stand in front of me
 combing your hair.

 You don't like these metaphors.
 All right:

 Perhaps I am not a mirror.
 Perhaps I am a pool.


 Think about pools.

Continued in Part 2.