Mirrors be damned.  You ran
your hands through your untamed hair
without fear of poison: the wide, slitted eyes,
the teeth, they knew better; knew
they’d be swinging in the wind
without you.  It was good to be needed.
Besides, you knew yourself as a reflection
and had no need of a glass.
Men’s faces twisted into your likeness–
you ran a finger over the granite lines,
smoothed their brows, tested the edge
of their teeth.  They stayed warm
a long time.

Issa M. Lewis is the author of Infinite Collisions (Finishing Line Press, 2017). A runner-up in the 2017 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize and 2013 winner of the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize, her poems have appeared in journals such as Jabberwock, Pearl, and Naugatuck River Review.