Self-portrait in a misty mirror
The glass is cold to touch,
fogged with early morning
bathroom steam. A drop
of condensation rolls from top
to bottom, clearing worm-holes
where pupils match pupils.
Nose as close as glass allows
before breath steams up the gap,
I see her eye, the cerulean
I would drown in as a child,
the eye I can only dream of now:
my inheritance.
Kim M. Russell
Kim M. Russell has been writing poetry since she was a schoolgirl but only began submitting to competitions and anthologies when she retired from teaching in 2014. Her poems have been published online, by Visual Verse and The Ekphrastic Review, among others, and in print: Afflatus Magazine, River Writes (Bure Navigation Conservation Trust), Anthology of Aunts and Second Place Rosette (Emma Press), the dVerse Anthology Chiaroscuro - Darkness and Light, Peeking Cat Anthologies 2017 and 2018, and Field Work (UEA Publishing Project with Kunsthalle Cromer). She lives in East Anglia between the North Sea coast and the Norfolk Broads, with her husband and two cats.
Twitter @kim88110
About This Poem
Self-portrait in a misty mirror’ was written in response to an on-line poetry prompt over two years ago. It is about an actual moment, when I looked in the bathroom mirror and my dead mother’s eyes stared back at me.