Fruit Bowl With Silver Pitcher

The pitcher's cozy nest of reflections
brings back the charmed world
in which a child once lost himself
(just staring at a spoon or goblet),
the lure of a magic world inside:
a tiny twinkling liquid infinity.

Partly it's the sudden distance
to which convexity stretches things,
a single orange streaming back and away
as if slipping into silvery blue future.

Partly it's how silver contains the world
in a bubble that lasts for centuries,
taking us in, year after gleaming year,
as fresh as a droplet of dew.

The child knew disappointment too--
couldn't enter, looked up, always,
to unwanted spinach and dull daylight,
maybe, seeing reflections move as he moved,
saw through the trick.

But here I feel only the charm:
I move in, then out to notice
how full and luminous are the glossy gold,
red, green and yellow fruits lollling
in the luxury of unforeshortened space
and unsilvered light this side
of the mirror--

as if I've come upon light, powdering,
combing out her long sleek tresses,
singing to herself before a silver mirror,
and she turns to me, smiling.

Dean Blehert

Last Updated: October 6, 2002