Poetry by Ash Miranda

vampires aren’t the only ones who can’t see their reflection

each time i pass a mirror, all i see is a crooked shade, jilted, tilted, a jaw filled with a swollen sap laden tongue, eyes from a window, a widow, a different world, there used to be a light there, a face too, there used to be a face in that glass etching, a face, but the shade’s taken over. each time i pass a mirror, all i see is clouded, fogged, cracked. each time i pass a mirror, all i see is dew drops turn to tsunami, a ravaging bloodlust god, he’s struck us with rains. and the dead are on the shores now. each time i pass a mirror, i see what must have been a human, but i’m no more living than you. neither of us are vampires. you are dead, my beating heart, but here we are, looking in the mirror and seeing nothing. 

i am a crow, assessing the danger

sorrow, says the naive mouth, sorrows
a crow remembers
trinkets and faces
a mouth remembers to mimic
a mouth remembers to drip wet
a mouth has never understood what nothing feels like
 
sorrow, says the mouth,
nothing says the heart,
 
a heart remembers to beat
a crow remembers
faces
 
a crow
remembers
to grieve