Nymph, Sylph, Mirror-glass

The water suspends,
As warm as a womb,
It whispers currents,
From the bloom of my own
Languor.

The air, she lays the steam
So soft and slow against the mirror-glass,
So soft and slow like mother lays
Her child in the bassinet.

Then, unburdened,
And left fresh-skirted and alive with chill,
She kisses me in the lover's nook -
The crook of the neck.

Her tease is tender:
She is right.
Its time that I got up.

My eyes wander to the mirror,
But the steam lays across,
So I, still and humid,
Am a ghost-in-the-glass.

Too tall, perhaps?
Yes, that.
The spectre, it is foreign --

But perhaps a strange and elder sister of myself
Looks back through a glass darkly.
And when I nod to her,
She nods back.

Cold, heartfelt, compassionate.

And this gentility,
Perhaps,
It is enough.

(image courtesy of nutmeg designs)

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