MY MOTHER AS NARCISSUS

Once I was like you, wearing solitude

as if it were a garment of the finest threads.

Mistaking loneliness for beauty, I knelt

before the pool, dipped my face toward its surface,

meeting not my reflection so much

as the stillness of its depths.

At first, it was only a test. Then each day

I had to surpass the one before,

peering longer to feel time

spinning almost to a stop.

Daughter, believe me when I tell you my flaw

was not vanity but pride. I thought

I could succeed where others had failed.

I thought I could stand to look

into the centre of myself

and not fall in.