When I was a girl, I used to
put messages in soda bottles
and stop them up with cork—
I’d stuff them with the kinds of messages
I would like to find—
you are beautiful
or
you will be happy—
and I would throw them into the lake.
I wish I could send one now
to your mirror
so the next time
you found your reflection
and started to frown,
you would see there, bobbing
between your self-critical eyes,
a message surprising enough
to help you know yourself clearly again—
sometimes it’s someone else’s eyes
that reteach our eyes to see.