Reflection
Reflection
by Pamela Riley
The last thing
she needed
was something with more
teeth on it –
incisive canines and incisors
carving meat from bone,
or breaking rocks
out behind the house
each morning.
She did not want a sister –
another companion
of hair and linen,
or a daughter –
a comrade for tea and misery,
to sit in a chair
wondering if the curtains
could keep out
the long afternoon.
She just wanted a man –
a suit with tie and smiles
that would bring
the world home
in his pockets
and love her the right way,
like too much wine
spilling across the tiles
pooling up
with her reflection.
Surprising. Everything is looked at so objectively–as an object or collection of objects–even the thing she wants, until the line “and love her the right way,” which spills out its own image “pooling up with her reflection,” which I guess means seeing her for what she really is–with more depth than the surface, “spilling across the tiles” of how she perceives, probably learned from how others perceive her.