After the “Honesty Mirror” made by Frances MacDonald in 1896

worn with looking
the mirror is
behind glass

reflections absent
frame without picture
except the light

enclosed by
pewter plants and
women’s hands

fleshless figures
hung with cloth
of metal

tooled faces
long-fingered
maker’s hands

stylized honesty
seeds beneath
pale silvered skin

sexless figures
flowering
hair becoming stems

pointing
to a seed pod
against the sun

tasteless, scentless
untouchable
in beaten tin

the ageing, spotted glass
has a photograph’s
silvered grace

lean in and see
your father’s ghost
in a weathered window

Ellen McAteer

(from the Ekphrasis/Writing into Art project I was involved in this summer: more details, and poems by other poets, at: http://writingintoart.wordpress.com/)

I found the exercise interesting because at first what I was shown was what you see if you look this artwork up on the web – a photograph of a mirror! Hence, reflections absent. Artworks around mirrors and reflections, the absence/presence of the artist and the viewer/reader in the work, abound, like this one, “A Reflection of We” at Trongate 103, (Sophie-China Cabourn). Below that is a picture of the work I am writing about.