Virginia Connors

Floating Mirror As if it belonged there, as ifit were a feather released by that heronflapping off, low to the water,a mirror floats across the lake, glass floating on glass.A light breeze hums it along.Shining on its surface, a few drops of waterwobble and settle into one another. Small gleam of consciousnessbetween water and air, cloudand reflection, the mirrordrifts. I wonder what carries us, what can everbe known. Soon the cloudswill smolder, their edges leaking goldas darkness settles into sky and water. The loon will warble its long,haunting call. Something within me,something beyond language,will want to answer. Sunlight settles warm on my armsYellow perch and mean-mouthed piketroll below, through weeds that swaylike trees on a breezy day. Like the fish, I swervein my fields of endeavor, a shadow chasing shadows.When the mirror snags in some lilies I do not rescue it. Their stems are longand tough. Their creamy blossoms,a little ragged at the edges,clutch small suns in their centers. I would not call it tragedy, thisinterrupted journey. To be heldby something that goes downso deep, that opens so wide. White Orchids Greet Me on Waking Crowding the woody stemtwenty-three faces turn toward me luminous white, their petals a flotillaof sails. They become the children I’ve held to my heart. And grandparents.Aunts. Parents once so tall. Here are the selves I’ve almost shed. This morningthey’ve come to call, dressed in white petals. Now they’re a flockof butterfly wings. They begin to carry me away. I return lighter.The memory of kindness fills my kitchen where a world of white orchids has unfurled. Ginny Lowe Connors is the author of two poetry collections: The Unparalleled Beauty of a Crooked Line and Barbarians in the Kitchen, as well as a chapbook, Under the Porch, winner of the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize Award. Connors lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she is an English teacher. She also serves as West Hartford’s Poet Laureate.