After Plath’s Mirror

I am empty and silent. I have no expectations.

I simply hold the light or absence of light

that allows the shape its color, the surface its texture.

I give myself to the space where I lean,

against white wall, my eye opens out to wall

window sky tree bird.

Particles of light gather here sliding

on silver surface and swim out in all directions

making a dark lake for a flickering moon.

I give no instruction to the waves that are oddly

penetrated in my presence. I am merely a sentinal

unsentimental to the revolving shade.

I go dim with all the rest and wait, patient

arbitor of looking glass time and space,

evidence of molecular density, faithful passing.

I hold the heart’s bottomlessness, unfathomable

pleasure and pain spinning from darkness to light

and back again with wall window sky tree bird.