The Secret in the Mirror
By Alberto Ríos
The mirror is dirty from the detritus of dailiness—
I look in the mirror and am freckled.
A week out from being cleaned, maybe two, maybe more,
The Milky Way shows itself in the secret silver,
This star chart in my own bathroom,
Aglow not in darkness but with the lights on,
Everything suddenly so clear.
It is not smear I am looking at, but galaxies.
It is not toothpaste and water spots—
When I look in the mirror, it is writing and numbers,
Musical notes, 1s and 0s, Morse-like codes, runes.
I am looking over into the other side,
And over there, whoever they are, it turns out
They look a lot like me. Like me, but freckled.
About this Poem
“Whatever our professional posturing, this poem speaks to the everyday lives we also lead—not cleaning the bathroom sink quite as much as we perhaps should, not always controlling the floss strings of good intentions now turned wild, not vacuuming nearly enough. But even in the mundane, we have, always at hand, surprise, surprise at its most savory in that we have least expected to find it where it is not advertised.” —Alberto Ríos
About the Poet
Born in 1952, Alberto Ríos is the inaugural state poet laureate of Arizona and the author of many poetry collections, including A Small Story about the Sky (Copper Canyon Press, 2015). In 1981, he received the Walt Whitman Award for his collection Whispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press, 1982). He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2014 to 2020.
Joe
The Closet Professor 
Thank you for commenting. I always want to know what you have to say. However, I have a few rules: 1. Always be kind and considerate to others. 2. Do not degrade other people's way of thinking. 3. I have the right to refuse or remove any comment I deem inappropriate. 4. If you comment on a post that was published over 14 days ago, it will not post immediately. Those comments are set for moderation. If it doesn't break the above rules, it will post.