Riffs on Reflection & Shadow

Here is a pair of poetic prose pieces from Stephen Dunn's book, Riffs & Reciprocities:

Reflection

A mirror is the beginning of a comedy, and comedies, like the truth, are always a little cruel. But it isn't true that mirrors never lie. They lack attitude, and therefore cannot be wholly trusted. A hangover means as much to them as a great sadness. Sometimes we can hardly recognize ourselves in a mirror--because the image is so accurate. We understand the need to shatter, to transmogrify, in order to feel more like ourselves. If we place a bowl in front of a mirror, it is an arrangement so artificial that what's real--the bowl, the mirror, and the viewing eye--constitute a separate reality. Good realism is like that. The inanimate especially longs to be rescued by viewpoint more than passion or conviction.

Shadow

A shadow makes us think twice, thus we link it with doubt and worry. Something has gotten in the way, and it's often us. We elongate, flatten. At a streetcorner, we can be seen before we arrive. The truth, a shadow implies, is in perspective, a matter of what's behind us. The natural is merely one possibility; artificial light serves just fine. In either case, concealment is part of clarity A shadow, like some of us, is always a citizen of where it finds itself. Pavement. Hardwood floor. It finds texture as it goes. In this way it is more palpable, say, than a woman unseen except by her mirror. Or a solitary man, the keyhole to his sunlit room closed-up with a key. Yet I long for anyone with a shadowy past, half texture-in-the-making, half half-told-story, a sweet balance between style and disclosure.


Dunn, Stephen. Riffs & Reciprocities: Prose Pairs. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company) 1998, 80-81