‘The Mirror True’ and Other Poetry by Sheri-Ann O’Shea

The Mirror True

When all at once I seem to see you there
I find I never knew you from the first
When all that I once thought you seems reversed
I wonder what my mind could so ensnare.
How could I so mistake your every mood
Give words and deeds so criminal a turn
And how your heart with such injustice spurn
Unsaying every word with which I wooed?
And now I think I looked not in your face
But in my own reflected in your eye
And that I could not bear the great disgrace
Of what I saw; so entered on a lie.
My only love, you were the mirror true
That shattered me, and so I turned on you.

Haiku

A leaf flutters down
through the chill autumnal air
a doom to my heart.

The sting of cold snow
burns my hands red with its fire
ice, too, can desire

Freely blooms unfurl
sigh their scent onto the air
breathe their last and curl.

Sheri-Ann O’Shea is a South African-born teacher, now living in Brisbane, Australia with her
husband and three lively boys.

Featured Image: “The Mirror of Venus,” 1898, by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones