The Venetian Mirror 

Stills

​

written by Tamar Yoseloff​

 

When I first hung it in our bedroom we could not sleep all night, it was like having the moon for company,

so bright it shone

             Jim Ede

 

1

 

Silver has its day, recedes

to reveal the surface beneath

 

gone black -

Its own Dorian moment

 

It reflects back what we have

not been able to understand

 

an abundance lost, just hinted

In the etched leaves, tendrils lacing

 

the frame. What’s inside is

rust, a pox on a lovely face

 

still we trade its dimensions

for our own : dumbstruck, vain

 

2

 

The basilica behind a slick 

of rain, gold diminished

 

to don. The colour of nothing,

The bulk of it jagged

 

on the darkening sky

The end of day, odic light

 

illuminates a shrivelled rose;

all the sadness we contain

 

in this drop of rain, its

crystallised gloom

 

3

 

The ghost hulk of the palazzo

leans into the canal. Narcissus crazed

 

Tarnished jewels, pink marble

Dulled to flesh. Shiver of a ballroom

 

out of season, sliver of broken 

glass, the first glistening of frost

 

as the campana strikes,

mourns itself in echo

​