Mirror, mirror
poem - by Marisca Pichette
When my grandmother died
I caught her falling
tartan slippers first
into a silver mirror.
She weighed little more
than a pocketknife,
cataracted eyes gazing
at my reflection.
When my grandmother died
I put her in my purse
next to the sugar packets
she hoarded endlessly in life.
She comes with me now
from work to home to
work again, blinking
in time with my steps.
When my grandmother was alive
we never spoke.
She was distant, detached, circling
decades past.
I used to gaze at her
wondering what those wrinkles
held, what smile her dentures
echoed.
Now she speaks to me always
cautioning me to look
both ways before I cross the street,
both ways before I date a stranger.
Her voice is lispy and staticked,
like a boar bristle brush
covered in lint.
I listen.
My grandmother—she died
just ten seconds before
my life with her
began.