HEATHER CHAPMAN
Second Prize - 2024 Tower Poetry Competition, 'Mirror'
Two Vampires Cut Each Other's Hair in Front of the Mirror
And you’re gentle, though I’d wanted an execution,
the sibilant winking cut. I’m greedy, ambitious
for the finite, the slow dropping of hair
something like grief, or grief’s obedience,
the fall so dutifully following the knife. You turn
your chin, test your profile. A portion of night
swells the mirror, where your features should reunite.
You pretend not to care. You’re cutthroat
on sentiment, swear you love our daily patterns:
the bloom of joy after dinner; the bitterness
souring your gums. For how long have I studied
the shape of your mouth – its disrepair,
pink and honest in destruction. You swear
you’re kind. Only once did I not believe you – night
before Christmas, the streets candied
with lights. Canines botching a cut
between tendons, you’d laughed an obituary,
suddenly vicious, suddenly nocturnal,
and I’d wished for a cool glass to return
your image softer. But it’s late, and your hair
is so easy in my hands. I feel like a habitant
in myself. I could own my mouth, tame the night
that comforts my outline. Your offcuts
scatter across my lap – accidental ingredient
for religion, like the coins or the bloodied
calf. But you get nervous around the eternal,
prefer to imagine yourself fragile, cut
from a finite sky – both of us heir
to nothing. Now, you’re talking about a fortnight
in the 1300s, when your new overbite
still made you nervous. Time’s orbit
forgets to clasp: your old medieval
accent rises bold and green. This ignition
of vowels, everything already turning
into something else. Nothing is rare,
not even the terror – second hand, clearcut.
We’re obedient to no-one. The mirror neglects
the pattern of blood at your cuticles, bitter and definite.
You turn to smile at me, and I am glad I do not have to share.