by Kenneth Frost
My senile aunt
waves her hand like a handkerchief hello
to the old lady
who comes to the mirror’s castle window-frame
each night and waves
herself into her fingertips goodbye
before one of them climbs, hand over hand,
the stairway to
the mountain peak of sleep.
Who speaks the caressing command?
Stirred around the golden
whirlpool of a pendulum,
I am contemplated by
my own motion
inward.
I never knew
that I would know such peace.
A drop of water
as it hits, explodes
into a crown
emptying itself.