In a house with too many mirrors,
it’s hard to dream;
and this is why, after she died,
her children walked the house from room to room,
with sheets and scarves to blind each looking glass
that might have kept her from the afterlife.
No one explained; and yet I understood
how readily the soul might linger on –
a far song in the hollow of the roof,
a thumbprint on a cup, an old cologne.
A mercy, then, to send them out alone,
forgetting what they were, no name, no face:
whatever happens in the life to come,
you’d hardly want to drag the self along.
My uncles left that house of mirrors wrapped
for weeks, a secret flowering on the glass
beneath the veils of blanket-wool and linen;
and, afterwards, I couldn’t bear to look,
afraid that I might catch her hurrying back
to what she’d always known, an eager ghost,
smiling at nothing, coming home untransformed.