Father's Mirror

Here's one like it-

my father's mirror-

an eye which wants the world

arranged a certain way,

framed in dark wood

like a portrait,

a miniature window,

telling a truth so small

that anyone who stands

in front of it feels

captured, loved,

portrayed in a light

that fades like tide

drying on a beach,

or frost flowers thawing.

His mirror has hung on every

bathroom wall; in it I saw

the back of my head, the curve

of my young woman's back,

my mother's face as I repeated

her impetuous marriage,

withheld hope. My father's

mirror followed from his house,

which I dismantled, to the house

my children grew in, where we hung it

for a glance, a final reassurance

before flinging wide the door.