Half in the World, Half in Its Mirror

I stand where the water forgets

whether it is sky or grief.

The world has gone quiet in that careful way

it does after something leaves

and does not come back.

Even the mist seems to know,

drawing a pale veil over everything

as if mercy could be made from weather.

Across from me, three trees burn softly without flame,

their crowns full of impossible color,

orange like the last warmth of a hand,

blue like old sorrow, pink like the tender lie

that beauty can keep anything alive.

They tremble in the water beneath them;

each reflection is more fragile than the thing itself.

I know that feeling.

I have become a reflection

of the life I thought I would have.

A still shape. A careful outline.

A body standing upright while something deeper sinks.

The lilies float near my feet like opened letters

I cannot bear to read again.

Their petals are so bright

it almost feels cruel,

this insistence on loveliness in a place so full of absence.

A frog clings to a pad, small and waiting,

as if waiting has ever changed the ending of anything.

I keep looking toward the island

as though someone might step out

from behind those jeweled trees,

call my name, and make the water ripple with a different future.

But nothing comes. Only the long white ache of morning.

Only my breath, thin as smoke.

Only this terrible calm that settles after loss

and asks to be mistaken for peace.

So I remain here, half in the world,

half in its mirror, learning how loneliness can glitter,

learning how silence can bloom,

learning how even now my heart keeps reflecting

what it can no longer hold.