Self-Portrait in the Hall of Mirrors

After Jessica Abughattas

In the broken carousel of my brain,
the music doesn’t stop. The kids

want to get off. I watch the glittering
dragon and five-tailed horse turn,

restless, rising and falling to the same
raw, red tune. Here is a night circus

that won’t punch you in the throat,
only hold you with silvering fingers

until dawn wraps around the horizon like a dress
too thin to hold down. I keep the kids hostage

with the promise of beasts. One sewing wings
to its front hooves and a kite to its back.

One gathering the virgin stars with its elephant trunk
and eating them like painkillers. One licking

its dying cub and one ignoring its cry.
We beasts, we girls, undermined.

There’s nothing like trying to fly
only to have these wings burned through

with a wick of my own making. Trying
to protect myself against this ornate chaos

only to wonder which beast is me
or whether they’re real at all. All I want

is to see a friendly face next to mine
late at night in the hall of mirrors,

which has no horses or dragons —
just my own pale skin for miles and miles.