What woman wouldn’t
send a mirror sailing into smithereens
the day it said she was no longer lovely?
Or develop an obsession
with fruit, now that chocolate
can no longer be savoured,
will always taste of fat and guilt.

A life of apples
and barely-there crackers,
frail as the skin around the eyes.
Enough of those hated squares
to build a castle of hope,
in which to spend the days

wondering how those girls in their mini-skirts
and navels, worn like a badge of youth
never seem to feel the cold.
If the greeting of a complimentary mirror each morning
is enough to keep them warm.

There’s no need to poison apples
when cakes are laced
with something close to arsenic,
when coffee is a sin.
And each morning when asked
the same, decaying question,
the mirror stares back impassively,
and sends her tower broken to the ground.