She, poised, and calm as ever, painted her eyes
in dark shades of discomfort. Twenty years old,
she hid her tight body beneath fish nets and light
crawling into a gray room. She truly had meant
to smile, watching the girls walk by in the mirror
but by now had forgotten what the gesture stood for.
She, tragically average, stretched her body for
men, counting the few that found her quiet eyes.
Tonight, and often, it was a young man, a mirror
of untainted life. He, she prayed, was not cold
like the others. He watched her stiff movement,
years away form days spent dancing in delight
as a child, a delicate innocence reflecting light
wistfully. She now moved awkwardly for
a room full of broken wishes, a discernment
of the sin that sadly depended on her, her eyes,
a shadow of lifeless clay. She was fading, old,
watchful of time, staring blankly in the mirror.
On stage she hid inside herself; not even a mirror
could reflect what she felt, moving in neon light,
wild as wind, outside her sexuality, numb to bold
insults from cowardly admirers. She worked for
herself, for the money that she flashed in her eyes,
flaunted, then burnt slow on wine, or sex, meant
to remove her from an intoxicated state, meant
to reluctantly recall moments lost in a mirror
reflective of desperate wishes. It was her eyes
she wished someone to love--to love the slight
movement of her hair across her back, long for
her smile, her laugh. Her body no longer sold
in the dark would sparkle as bright as a gold
promise, without icy or painful resentment
towards her past, or a dark inability to for-
give her for wanting to live free. The mirror
she hid from too long would come into light,
holding her gently, admiring her quiet eyes.
And this fulfillment is what she lived for:
her eyes, her story, still awake in the mirror,
gracefully told in the absence of love’s light.
