An old mirror leans against my neighbor’s
mailbox post, reflecting the gray sky
and the power lines, tilting just enough
to catch the noon sun and throw a white
rectangle onto the weeds. The silver
backing is peeling away like old skin.
It doesn’t miss the bedroom wall.
It doesn’t miss the woman who combed
her hair before it every morning. It has
forgotten the wallpaper. It has forgotten
the dust. It has forgotten the quiet dark
of nights. For how many years did it hold
that room? Twenty? Thirty? Now it holds
the whole afternoon, the telephone poles,
the clouds, the heat. It is wider now than
it ever was, and much more fragile. It has
lost its frame of reference, no longer
bounded by four plaster walls, no longer
telling anyone they look tired. It accepts
the clouds without comment. It accepts
the bugs that crawl across its face. It is
a small piece of the sky that fell down
and landed right side up. I start to look
in it. Then change my mind.

Nominated for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, twice for the National Book Award, and three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J. R. Solonche is the author of more than fifty books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.