She knows how to work a mirror,
reverses images, modulates tones,
not caught out by random reflections
in windows or septic puddles.
Mimickry is a two-lensed telescope,
she says, a broad capture
and a rarified painting both:
She standing at the fulcrum,
she with her monitors and corrections
and temperings,
she with her polite gloss and roiling
belly. Her skin breaks sometimes,
red pus staining white skin
and whiter cotton, goblins crawling
along sinks and dressers, oozing
up the mirrors, eating the clarity
of her eyes. They don't know,
those with the photograph
memories, stamped and dated
at first impressions, but she does.
She takes time alone,
washes clothing, stitches
seven layers of flesh,
waits for scabs to form
until the only thing left
imprinted on her retina
agrees with what they think
they know.
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