Most of the things you made for me—blanket- <br />chest, lapdesk, the armless rocker—I gave <br />away to friends who could use them and not <br />be reminded of the hours lost there, <br />not having been witness to those designs, <br />the tedious finishes. But I did keep <br />the mirror, perhaps because like all mirrors, <br />most of these years it has been invisible, <br />part of the wall, or defined by reflection— <br />safe—because reflection, after all, does change. <br />I hung it here in the front, dark hallway <br />of this house you will never see, so that <br />it might magnify the meager light, <br />become a lesser, backward window. No one <br />pauses long before it. But this morning, <br />as I put on my overcoat, then straightened <br />my hair, I saw outside my face its frame <br />you made for me, admiring for the first <br />time the way the cherry you cut and planed <br />yourself had darkened, just as you said it would.<br /><br />Claudia Emerson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/frame-an-epistle/
