The Lady in the Mirror by Scott Elder

The lady in the mirror strokes back her hair. A dark sea swells 

between her fingers. She settles like snowflakes into stillness.

Stillness aches before the dawn. The dissonant chink of an iron 

bell in the antique clock in the kitchen cleaves her thoughts in 

the falling, hammers iron to the bone. In the instant’s burning,

in the slow turning, the lady in the mirror resigns herself to the

falling, and the falling has no end.  

*Previously published in Poetry Salzburg

____________________________________________________________

Scott Elder‘s work has appeared in several magazines and journals. His poems have been placed or commended in the Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2016, the Guernsey International Poetry Prize 2018, the Bristol Poetry Prize 2018, the Poetry on the Lake Prize 2018, Buzzwords Poetry Competition 2018, and shortlisted in the Fish Poetry Prize 2017 and the Plough Prize 2017.  Publications: Breaking Away (Poetry Salzburg, 2015), Part of the Dark (Dempsey & Windle, 2017).