Mirror
Mirror
Sylvia Plath
1
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
2
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
3
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
4
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
5
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
6
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
7
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
8
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
9
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
10
11
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
12
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
13
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
14
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
15
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
16
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
17
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
18
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
19
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
About the Author
Sylvia Plath
1932 - 1963, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for her two published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel, as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. Plath's work often dealt with themes of death, rebirth, and psychological trauma, drawing from her own struggles with depression and mental illness. Her intensely personal and emotionally charged poetry has made her one of the most studied and influential poets of the 20th century.
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