So When She Looks at Her Reflection

If there is an anteroom
between here and an afterlife,
there paces my mother, not renown
for her patience

so give her a break, gatekeeper,
save yourself from her exasperation
and answer when she raps
her knuckles, smartly,

her nails ridged and red, light rouge,
her hair pale down.
We had a foyer, but never kept
people waiting there — they were in

or out, with one exception:
the burglar who we would exclude,
had he not found his way
upstairs and scrawled a menace,

"Smile" in lipstick near my room,
having mastered irony, no ordinary felon.
I ran upstairs before my mother knew
fear, came down when I found it.

If Lethe is your transition of choice,
let her cross and begin the forgetting
and give her a life-jacket
on the way over or she will

drive you crazy: why drown after dying?
Lend a mirror so she can put on
her face and bring a little artifice
with her. Let the waters erase

the memory of fear, anonymous
months, but leave the odd narrative —
shouldn't we be able to take
one story with us? Not even

a pleasant one — just to know
who you were? If you never
had a foyer, you'd imagine it
more grand than it was: really, it was

just a threshold, a place to
arrive, pause, abandon.

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Copyright © 2011 Patty Seyburn All rights reserved
from Green Mountains Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission