Catoptromancy

When all the words had become mirrors,
she looked in and found the afternoon shimmering
like a plain where red-winged blackbirds
wrote liquid notes to one another.
She hung in the gap
between what she could forget
and what she could remember. The children
were picking up sticks that had fallen that winter
for burning. If a mirror cracked,
she would hear them laughing as they worked
to stack bits of every kind of oak
and also wild cherry together
to form a new tree at the center of the garden.
It came alive with flames in the evening.