Isabelle Lee

MIRROR

~a prose poem~

Greeting her each morning, I return with grace her glare. She curses me as she strips; I wonder how I wronged her. Was my glass not smooth? My frame not polished? Distraught, she fires hangers my way, their garments crimped like her body, curled before me on hardwood. I serenade her with sonnets, plead in prose to cease squeezing her stomach, pause pinching skin between her thighs–– but my verse drowns in endless criticism. Out of the blue, I realize she isn’t talking to me. She never was! She scowls not at me but through me. She has cursed herself all along. 

About the Author: Isabelle Lee has studied poetry for three years at a professional poetry institute taught by an award-winning poet and essayist. Her writing has developed quickly in Poetry Power and her poems have been featured in various adult literary journals and recently, Girls Right the World. Her poems have won various awards including Second Place in the prestigious international "Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition" sponsored annually by the National League of American Pen Women since 1992.