Lost Ticket: Mirrors by Nicki Peter

Mirrors

Dust motes

and taste of seaweed,

smeared fingerprints

and thin film of sea salt

blown over from coastline –

these are the things that coat

his odd possessions.

Bear keeps them like this,

with their fine vintage of grain and mould,

use and age, delicacies

of hermetic bacterial colonies,

growing pungent and rich

like liquor to a vintner,

a soft coagulate of old,

cold memories –

as if he could reclaim from them

the journey he once took.

He brushes bruised fingertips

over a blemished mirror,

its splintered image

and pooling confusion.

In it his face is hidden

and he just hears the wind.

Glint of sunlit glass;

the fermenting ticket

reflected from its cabinet perch

with its old message:

From: --------

To: Lost ------

Adult Single

No Return

DUST

MEMORIES

Words by Nicki Peters

Edited by Eleanor Rogers