Issue Thirty-Five -- Winter 2020

One-Way Mirror

By Luanne Castle

At the bottom of the drawer lies
a gleaming woman around twenty
smiling with widely parted rosy
lips around straight white teeth.
Her chestnut hair in long waves
frames the lean bones of her face.
The face flushed, the eyes sapphire.
She’s in my pheasant-strewn jersey
three-piece comfort palazzo glam.
I wore it to see Bob Marley–our trip
to Kingston–and the white field
of the fabric glowed like moonlight
in the concert lamps and your eyes.
This girl I remember with her sheen
glossing everything around her.
She doesn’t know me though
I am only possible because of her.
Above the opened drawer is a mirror.
When I raise my head and spot
a jowly woman with a mean squint
I am not sure who that woman is.
I drift between the utility drawer
and the mirror, flawed and distorting.

Copyright 2020 Castle

Luanne Castle 's Kin Types (Finishing Line Press), a chapbook of poetry and flash nonfiction, was a finalist for the 2018 Eric Hoffer Award. Her first collection of poetry, Doll God, winner of the 2015 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, was published by Aldrich Press. Luanne has been a Fellow at the Center for Ideas and Society at the University of California, Riverside. She studied English and Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside (PhD); Western Michigan University (MFA); and Stanford University. Her Pushcart-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, TAB, American Journal of Poetry, Verse Daily, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Lunch Ticket, River Teeth, The Review Review, Broad Street, and other journals. An avid blogger, she can be found at luannecastle.com. She divides her time between California and Arizona, where she shares land with a herd of javelina.

All work by