Mirrors Poem by Silvina Ocampo

It would be useless to cover mirrors
so that the people inside don't get out
who have lodged there
waiting for someone to be reflected
and ominously or piously, unnoticed,
they could leave the luminous
dwelling where they live,
to attack us or protect us or pervert us.
From its earliest beginnings that I recall
a heavenly and diabolical court has attended me:
when my nanny Celestina buttoned her housecoat
(it's true that she was dyeing her hair
and to surprise her I ventured beside her reflection)
four dragonflies fluttered about
announcing rain, one grazed my cheek and they came out
of the area where she was reflected;
they followed me always or followed her,
with her death they disappeared,
except on the eve of a storm.
When my mother got dressed to go to the ball
and fastened the band on her purple velvet belt
an angel departed with her when she put out the light
accompanied her to the car
and that's why I believe she returned that night
in which I trembled with fear for her death.
When the ballet teacher
curtsied within the ebony frame, three people with masks
came out singing and visited me in a dream.
When the doctor ascending in the elevator
fixed his tie
fifty faces with white aprons,
which I couldn't examine, furtively sprang out
from that small perfectly illuminated moon.
When Susana told me in the candy shop
my hair's a mess,
she looked at herself in the lid of the compact,
imprudently I said "Let me see,"
I leaned into the shining circle:
a turbulent dialogue startled us,
three youths with necklaces,
thin, from having been cooped up in a tiny circle,
malicious,
sat down at our table.
Ever since that day they've all interfered
in our telephone calls.
My dog, who attentively admired himself once,
barked insistently,
shrewder he had seen a certain corporality
leaving the mirror:
a soft white rabbit visited me one afternoon.
But I won't list the cats,
the horses, the gazelles, the tortoises,
the necrophiliacs,
the cannibals, the unborn,
the gnomes, the giants, the onanists,
that came out of the mirrors where imprudently
I glanced beside other people who didn't see them
blinded by their own image.
Now I no longer share a mirror with anyone
because if my reflection takes the opportunity
to let them free, armies of other people,
a world too numerous
will be taking shape though it be difficult to stop
because the mirror will say "grow and multiply"
to the point of dislodging the universe
secretly hoping for that
after having repeated it so long
in water, in obsidian,
in metals and in subsequent mirrors.
Nor must we think that the whole thing is horrible.
The homeless will take shelter
inside of mirrors
(they won't ever have lived in places so luminous)
they will come out in their turn
when those who were reflection
contemplate themselves forgetting their experience.