The room is white.
A single vanity light
hovers over the mirror.

Her hennaed hand
caresses the blue jewel,
drops it on the nightstand.

Lifting a single
long black hair
she stretches it to its length,
lets it fall to the silver floor.

On the stand,
from a magnolia tree
a leaf, edges curled,
the slightest shade of gold,
caught by a child.

Turning off the light
she invites darkness.

It falls across her reflection
as the last of the light
lingers in the mirror.

A question inhabits the dark,
tracing the arc of a demise,

Her glassy mind shattered,
paper thoughts fall,
lanterns in the air.