Читать книгу A Hundred Silences - Gabeba Baderoon - Страница 8

5. The mirror in the front room

The mirror in the front room

In the front room above the grate

and the slate mantelpiece stands

the huge, gilt-edged mirror,

one hundred and thirty years old, moved

three times, each time losing something

– the flower at the side, the angel on top –

because the ceiling is lower, the walls closer.

If you stand in front of it, you see

cracks as fine as grey hair. In it, things look

like photographs from the fifties,

the tones softer, browner.

You can see the whole room in it.

Unwatched, the old carpet fades in the corner.

On the sideboard, photographs of different generations,

the same shyness, the same eyes.