Transformative, the mirror shows
a me I hardly recognize—an evil twin,
a raging doppelgänger. She-devil’s eyes
glow like fired glass. What’s got me so
unstrung? Boom box? Or car door
slammed against the silence
that’s my one
safe space? I run inside;
but the cave still echoes with a world I must
find my way back to, call and response
spiraling through time
and urging me to follow. It might have been
a dark conspiracy that set these walls
to ringing. Or I might have missed
a pleasant strain. It might
have been someone singing.
Jane Marston lives in Athens, Georgia, where she has spent many months learning to live with Misophonia, an OCD spectrum disorder marked by a dysfunctional response to certain sounds. In prior years, she has published poetry in journals including Southern Humanities Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Blood & Fire Review, and Crucible.
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