Folks at the Authors Showcase 2017 asked for this poem. Here you go:
sculpture by Cheryl Bogdanowitsch
Mirror, Mirror
Part 1
The girl in the mirror
had big brown eyes
and white-gold hair
and I liked her smile
and I liked her song
and I liked her two feet dancing
so I
kissed her there in the mirror
kissed her right on the lips
kissed her fogging and smudging the mirror
but I didn’t care because
she was beautiful
and that was when
Mama walked in and something in her face
told me I was bad
and that was when she spat
“You are so conceited!”
and I didn’t know what conceited meant
but I knew that it was wrong
and so was I
and so was the laughing girl in the mirror
so I
learned to only look at her
sideways, in small pieces
an eye,
a lip,
her hair,
because that was the opposite of conceited
so then I was modest
and then I was humble
and Mama wasn’t mad anymore.
Part 2
Forty years later,
as I crossed
from one room to another
I saw in the mirror in the hall
something that struck me
as, well, sort of lovely
so I stopped and looked more closely
and it was the shape of the foot in the shoe
of a girl who is almost fifty
then I looked at her other foot in the other shoe
and it was lovely, too
so I noticed her shapely legs
and the curve of her hip
where the dress fell just so
and the cut of the bodice
flattered her small breasts
so I glanced at her neck
where the honey-colored hair
made a tender frame
for her face
oh, her face
should I, could I
look at her face?
and then I did. I
did. I
looked at her face
and it was the little girl
only older
and I loved the lines around her eyes
and I loved the tear that balanced there
and then spilled over
and I loved her cheek as the tears ran down
and I loved her whole face
so I leaned in close and I kissed her there in the mirror
kissed her right on the lips
kissed her, fogging and smudging the mirror.