Saturday, May 2, 2009







Medusa














I saw you this morning in the corner of my mirror--
I've learned not to turn too quickly.
Long ago we set the rules--
play the game in peripheral--
friendship maintained
through the custody of the eyes--
First visit I was a child of two
no buried memories or pots to stir--
perhaps faint echoes of a time before
when orphaned in the aether of souls.
Side by side we sat on my cot
four eyes focused on dimity curtained windows--
or was our focus the light shining through?
Later years we flew
kites in mud-sogged fields---
eyes always up
as if the sky held the answer
to the question formed
in the crushed heads
of the snake grass underfoot.
Was it fear sent your
focus to heaven?
deferral of death?
This morning I saw you in the corner of my mirror
and I wanted nothing so much as to peer
into your ash grey eyes---
to know you as I have been known.
This morning I saw you and I wondered---
but as ever I've learned
not to look.

(Image: Fiery Medusa, Mimi Yoon)

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