Today Is Your Birthday

by Ben Seanor

Take out all the gold
framed mirrors you’ve been saving.
Place them on the lawn.
This is how the sky should be seen––
especially on a day like this,
which is notable for how it compliments
your party shirt and new haircut.
These frames are gilt-edged
attempts to make the sky
more attractive, as a small bowl
makes raspberries. Or, in the act
of closing your door, I find a sudden
and painful desire to love you more.
If we wait long enough, the mirrors
will show us how the birds
tear the tree to shit. It’s their way
to remind one another they’re really alive,
but I cannot call it romance.
At night, when you cry over
how much you love someone,
it is not because you love them.
It is because they will leave you
for someone more attractive
or successful or, eventually,
less dead, and you know you will be
okay when it happens. In time,
these moments of recognition
become the frame through which you view
every relationship. Put your fingers
to the window-space you thought
the frame merely implied, find
that window a mirror. Touch your hair,
your lips. And further past
the glass, the silvering, thinning,
a figure closing a door, stuck, wavering.

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Ben Seanor lives in Texas and works in higher education. His work has appeared in, among other places, Yes, Poetry; Cimarron Review; and decomP. You can find him on various platforms as @djsosadrn.