My Momma Told Me, “Talk Only to the Mirror”
My Momma told me, “Talk only to the mirror—
it won’t gossip with the shadows.”
So I press my lips to glass
to tell it secrets backward:
“Tell me, glass, who stole my breath
and stitched my tongue with leather thread?”
The mirror blinks its two small eyes—
tells me a riddle, but it’s enciphered.
I ask it, “Do I grow or shrink
when the moon pulls at my bones?”
It ripples, like water caught in a frame—
my face blooms, then dissolves, then blooms again.
“Mirror,” I say, “which memory is mine?
Which dream have I misplaced?”
It tilts its head, offering a half‑smile—
a cloudy map drawn in fog.
Sometimes I catch the mirror talking back,
a ghost of me standing just behind the glass.
She’s curious, she’s patient, she nods,
then leaves footprints on my reflection.
Before dawn I lean in one last time:
“Have I been brave?” I breathe.
The mirror shivers, then cracks—
a constellation of truths falling into light.
And when the shards dissolve at sunrise,
my Momma’s voice still lingers in my bones:
“Talk only to the mirror, child—
there you’ll find the world as you alone can know.”
WoPoLi 
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