By CLARA CHIU
I ask the girl peering into the mirror, although she cannot hear me
through the glass that partitions us into seer and seen. She, the latter,
her eyes still full of searching even when I press my palms
to the things between us: the mirror, the gulf, the unsaid.
Before me, the girl postures hesitancy, mouth twisting into question.
I want to iron out the worry with my thumb, notice how
the hair running through her fingers looks like my daughter’s,
waving hello in the current. Weightless as though dreamt.
Dreamt, yes, as it seems when even time suspends belief.
I don’t know when they put me here, inside this mirror.
Long enough to make a clock from this girl’s routine. Or maybe
there are many girls, and they pass by so quickly they become one.
All these passing girls, and to all, my words render ears deaf: meaning
emptying itself out. The girl is twisting her hair into braids, now, meaning
she will soon leave for the day. I don’t know when my daughter left. Maybe
this is why they put me here, why I must watch these girls pass again and again.
She is tying a ribbon, now. If only she could hear me. Oh, the things I would say.
I want to tell her she’s lovely, like my daughter, glassy-eyed and eternal.
I want to make her lovely, like I made my daughter, drifting in the water.
I’m pressing hard against the glass, against the surface, and I can almost reach her.
I’ll make her lovely. I’ll tell her this. Stay awhile. We’ll be lovely together.
Writer | Clara Chiu ’27 | cchiu27@amherst.edu
Editor | Toby Rosewater ’28 | trosewater28@amherst.edu