In the hive, the honey drowses
in the same cell as the bee;
and on the shelf the weathered book
clasps the spine of each page equally.
When the face looks back at itself
from the mirror, what does it see?
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Landscape, in the Aftermath of Flood
- A Carol
- Little Winter Song
- Because it is years since I last saw you
- Landscape, with Remnants of a Tale
- En Crépinette
- Luces
- Clearing
- Postscript
- Animus
- Improvisation
- New
- My mother turns 78 and texts
- [poem temporarily removed by author]
- [post temporarily removed by author]
- Dark Body
- Oír
- Rezar
- Inflorescence
- Midpoint
- Chalk Circle
- Oracle
- Mermaids
- Tarot: False Spring
- Making Dinner, I Hear Rostropovich on the Radio
- Field Notes
- Aragonaise
- Road Trip, ca. 1980
- Gold Study
- Triptych
- Marker
- Serif
- Compline
- Ghazal Par Amour
- White List
- Dear noisy stream gurgling in the distance,
- Between
- First, Blood
- Aura
- Mirador
- Rock, Paper, Scissors
- Interrogations
- Thread and Surface
- Maquette
- Legacy
- Diorama, with Mountain City and Fog
- Preparing the Balikbayan Box
- The Jewel in the Fruit
- Lumen
- Landscape, with Geese; and Later, Falling Snow
- Illusion
- Landscape, with Threads of Conversation
- Chroma
- First One, Then the Other
- Apostrophe
- Provision
- To Silence
- Morning, Cape Town
- Empty Ghazal
- High in the hills, the dead
- Practice
- Besame,
- Index
- Augury
- Dear unseen one,
- Bindings
- Saturday Afternoon at the Y
- Dear Epictetus, this is to you attributed:
- How have I failed to notice until now
- Cusp
- Field Note
- Dear shadow,
THE MIRROR
Was it Fabianne Geismar’s * fantasy, lifting that mirror?
Mirror as loot in temblor-stricken Haiti is fantasy
enough for that crumpled lass on the rubble of Haiti.
Haiti made sure the lass absconded too with enough
bullets in her brain, rending a dream of seeing her face
face itself in a purloined vanity piece pocked with bullets
when retrieved for Wal-Mart from her tight embrace.
Embrace your mirror, girl, a trophy of blooming. When?
When stirrings in your haunches told you what to steal?
Steal the heart of that lad staring at you with shy lust:
lust for love, for all that wreckage allows you to steal
so you can see your mouth that will kiss him, your eyes,
eyes that will shape him in your breasts, your so…
So supple body ripened quickly to life’s urgent quiver.
—Albert B. Casuga
02-16-12
* SHOT DEAD FOR STEALING MIRRORS. Fabianne Geismar,GEISMAR, 15, was shot by police pursuing looters.—Headline and Caption, The Toronto Star, Catastrophe in Haiti, Jan 20, 2009, Pg. 19