Curved Mirror
        (December 13th)

[Saint Agatha to Lucy]

all the world's strength
can't shift a ray of light

now you're the mainstay

—from these ashes
I'm pouring you the voice—

                                        * * *

I'm not leaving the earth
I'm not burning in the fire
like a stone I cannot die
only be opened in a gash
in which your daggers shine.

                                            *

I look at your eyes on the plate
grains of a vibrating face
open like the blue
over a harvested field.

                                            *

now that you've received the palm
from the angel's dark mantle
clutch the pen don't write
like a branch cut
from its own roots
nothing but the shining air.

                                            *

curved mirror the gift
emerges in the chest
veiled in moss
a pebble in the current:
every blow erased, I'm alive
beyond all your hands.

Tweet
Copyright © 2019 Franca Mancinelli, John Taylor All rights reserved
from The Bitter Oleander
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission