The magnifying mirror frames her face
holds tight its reflection, throws it back at her
bright and big. The lens takes her in,
rearranges her face. It is insistent;
a moon drowned in a lake.
It has no point of view, no alchemy except a true
reverse of what it sees. Words fly from her.
The lines on her forehead and at her eyes
are granite. Ogham notched on the sharp edge,
she has become her own memorial stone.
She sees the drowned young girl,
sees that terrible fish swimming towards her.
She steps back past the tideline
her face flips over, a rush of vertigo,
a different point of view flicks into place.
Above the silver arched interior
displaced air is too thin. She has passed
the concave mirror’s focal point.
Bell, book and candle cannot hold her.
Suddenly she is Alice, topsy turvy
vanished into a land of smoke and mirrors.
[Previously published in Lovely Legs, Salmon Publishing, 2009]
Jean O'Brien's last collection is Stars Burn Regardless (Salmon Publishing 2022). An award winning poet, she is a Kavanagh Fellow and was recently Poet in Residence in the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris (2021). She tutors in creative writing/poetry in the Irish Writers Centre and at University level.