In this poem the mirror is personified. The mirror is silver and exact with no preconception; an opinion or conception formed in advance of adequate knowledge or experience, especially a prejudice or bias. It swallows immediately whatever it sees. Just as everyone sees it, it is unmisted; something that does not dims, obscures, or blurs: a haze before the eyes that does not dim the vision; by love and dislike. It is never cruel but only truthful. It is like the eye of a little god which is placed in a four-cornered dimension. Most of the time the mirror meditates on the opposite wall which is pink and filled with speckles; a small speck, spot, or mark, as on skin: speckled coloring or marking: to mark with or as with speckles. It has starred endlessly at the pink wall day in and day out that now the wall has become part of the mirror’s heart. However the wall flickers: to burn unsteadily; shine with a wavering light: to move to and fro; vibrate; quiver: to flutter: to cause to flicker: an unsteady flame or light: a flickering movement: a brief occurrence or appearance: Often, flickers: the visual sensation of flickering that occurs when the interval between intermittent flashes of light is too long to permit fusion; and the faces of people and darkness separate them over and over again.
At present the mirror is a lake. A woman bends over it searching for the reaches of the deep waters to discover who she really is. Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon. The mirror sees her back and reflects her true identity very faithfully. In return the woman rewards her with tears and an agitation; the act or process of agitating; state of being agitated: persistent urging of a political or social cause or theory before the public: Also called psychomotor agitation. Psychological and physical restlessness, manifested by pacing, hand-wringing, or other activity, sometimes occurring as a symptom of severe depression, schizophrenia, or other mental disorder; of hands. The mirror is important to her. It is the woman’s face that replaces the darkness. In the mirror, the woman has drowned her image as a young girl and in the mirror the old woman rises towards her day after day like a terrible fish.