David M. Alper
Reflections
I emerged colder.
Day as white as a mirror fogged with breath, fleeting—dusk already casting shadows on the meadow's edges like a mirror devoid of silver.
Cracks in the mirrored surface bare branches trembling against the glassy sky.
But now I stand where you are not, the one I believed I needed, like a mirror, to
understand myself.
If I dared now, I would be consumed like a mirror swallows the object it reflects.
Overwhelmed by sorrow, once, my body left a mirrored imprint in the snow.
Is that love?
How I watched you disappear into desire, never to return—yet still linger, at the edge
of the frozen lake. Once, like you, I was certain— my agony infinite as a room full
of mirrors.
In the heart of silence, a reflection that shows no face, a reflection I would break under
the weight of my presence.
Now I observe my suffering like a mirror, an impassive pane.
Bio
David M. Alper's forthcoming poetry collection is Hush. His work appears in Variant Literature, Red Ogre Review, Oxford Magazine, and elsewhere. He is an educator in New York City.