Dressing room mirrors aren’t supposed to be haunted, but in Aline Kilmer’s poem, one holds three generations of loss. The speaker calls it “less like a mirror than a tomb,” and you quickly see why. When she brushes her hair in the morning, she meets her grandmother’s tired eyes instead of her own. An idle glance at midday reveals her mother’s youthful smile from twenty years ago. But the deepest ache comes at night: by candlelight, nursing her baby, the glass gives back her dead child’s face. The poem never raises its voice. The grief hangs in the hush of a dark room, in the weight of seeing what’s no longer there. You feel the speaker’s quiet exhaustion, her tenderness, and the lonely way the past refuses to stay buried when you’re standing in front of yourself.
My Mirror — Summary
There is a mirror in my room Less like a mirror than a tomb, There are so many ghosts that pass Across the surface of the glass.
When in the morning I arise With circles round my tired eyes, Seeking the glass to brush my hair My mother's mother meets me there.
If in the middle of the day I happen to go by that way, I see a smile I used to know — My mother, twenty years ago.
But when I rise by candlelight To feed my baby in the night, Then whitely in the glass I see My dead child's face look out at me.