She’s started to avoid mirrors again.
They make other people’s faces seem
bigger than they should be

and sometimes much nearer.
Perhaps ‘mirror’ is really another word
for the idea of night

as if the glass, like a leaf, might curl
and drop, leaving only a frame
where the day was.

There would be a fold inside her then,
a trace of water in the air, flying insects.
But, in truth, the many absences

of night need never be complete,
in a forest or in a story,
if a bargain with the dark can be struck.