INSTRUCTION
My father and I stand in front of his bathroom mirror He is shaving with his antique kit He stops, looks at me in the mirror His child He says, If anyone ever steals you away poke out the abductor's eye I can run, I say – No – take your finger and get it into his socket behind the eye then pull forward
MOTHER OF GOD
There was an ivory head of Mary mounted on my father’s wall It looked as if she was emerging She was almost as big as me Each night I lay in bed and imagined her floating through the dark house Eyeless spirit a tail of white trailing behind her