Mother

Your love was like moonlight

turning harsh things to beauty,

so that little wry souls

reflecting each other obliquely

as in cracked mirrors …beheld in your luminous spirit

their own reflection,

transfigured as in a shining stream,

and loved you for what they are not.

You are less an image in my mind

than a luster

I see you in gleams

pale as star-light on a gray wall …

evanescent as the reflection of a white swan

shimmering in broken water.