Moon. Mirror. Moon.

                She woke, was told: ‘Admit a path remote

                from grief and trace the moon’s bright shaft which cleaves

                the curtain’s arrow-slit to find your throat.

                This moonlight is a snake that undeceives.’

 

                Heart-gripped, she wept, led from her bed to draw

                apart the folds; beheld the moon, half-hewn,

                yet burdened, too, in growth; salvation saw

                in her dark mirror, a phantom waning moon;

 

                a moon reshapen in the looking glass,

                whereas the gibbous moon’s a maiden’s shame

                that waxes to its gravid burdensomeness.

                Moonlight beckons: ‘Now pinch the candle flame.’

 

                The steep banks of the millrace told their tale.

                She plunges into floodtide, gasps for breath.

                The mill stood like a church till its great wheel

                grants at last that immemorial death.

 

                In her deserted room the mirror shows

                a decrescent moon in fullness grows,

                avowal of a circumstantial lie.

                Affinities the glass does not deny.

                                                                                                                   Catherine Eisner

Photo credit: Alexandra Georgieva