The Wake

I bear your likeness, it’s been said
Lorelei swimming the liquor of my eyes
The press of your cheek against the blue mirror sheen
Shivers
You’re dying to glean a glance
At us. At what the mirror’s reflecting.

Though I’ve tried to dissect
To split the coat of scales
Splay the sleek spine
Beneath a rusty constellation of pins
Not even that sepchural skeleton can say
Where mother ends and daughter begins

My fingers in a stiff, merciless display
How they scratch and pluck
How they wring and wrench your silk slick limbs
Tearing you to tangles
Your broken angles a pile in the corner
Haunt my reflection no more

In the morn lonely
The mirror reflects
Eyes vacant
Eyes full of holes
There aren’t enough fingers
To plug those holes
To keep those eyes afloat

I sigh and let fall the secret sore
For watery myths, their likeness lost