The mirror of shards (poem)

The mirror of shards

Brotherly love cost two fingers
as he tried to catch some fish
for the four and four hungry little big eyes
the shark ate two and asked for more.

Obviously he fled. Never to be seen.
 


Fatherly love, so soft and volatile
cost a girl's virginity
as the world was too harsh and
for such a pretty little soul
but then he was stabbed and dragged.

By whom i shall never say.




Motherly love, deduced her to buy her girl
a hand mirror
to groom and stay pretty and to love and hate men
or so was i told.

I still remember the night
mother walked home with shards in her hands
blood dripping. dripping. dripping
from her brittle fingers, fingers, fingers.


Moon shawn and the shards glowed bright
and so did her eyes
which had no more, the brilloant warmth, just an emptyness so sharp it stang-
trumble, trumbled and finally tripped did she
with shards splattered on the grass between, me and a dying mother.



Trembling, she lifted her head
whispered
'Its not your fault, love'
and said no more.
And was no more.


Glazed eyes and a cold body
the last companions of a short tragic life.
I picked up a shard, and
i see
her
i see
me

and teardrops
and

and a goodbye.


Combed my hair for the last time-
cost clumps of hair and blood out of my scalf
made my lips wet red and shiny-
cost some iron taste in my mouth
and

made a bracelet for a little girl
too old now to be called little

and as the shard sliced all around my wrist
I closed my eyes and counted-


-Written by Kwan Yu-Ji (a.k.a. Jade)