<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; " class=""><header class="story-header interactive-header" style="position: relative; "><div class="story-meta" style="margin-bottom: 10px; "><h1 class="story-heading interactive-headline" itemprop="headline" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; "><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-weight: normal;" class=""><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3">Mirror. Memory</font></span></h1><div class="interactive-meta-footer story-meta-footer" style="border-top-style: none; padding-top: 0px; "><p class="summary interactive-leadin" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "></p></div></div></header><div id="30mag-poem-body" class="interactive-graphic"><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; " class=""><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); " class="">The man and woman in a formal portrait<br class="">before me in the gallery,<br class="">born to the high summer of Flemish pride —<br class=""><br class="">pride in their eyes, rendered with animal glues,<br class="">in the elaborate loops of their collars,<br class="">even pride in the painter<br class=""><br class="">who only yesterday applied gesso<br class="">and tacked the canvas to make them ready for<br class="">a future of perpetual intrusion —<br class=""><br class="">are not the ones I want to remember:<br class="">winter provincials listening for infant cries,<br class="">boiling a kettle in the predawn,<br class=""><br class="">their faces misted and revealed<br class="">in the steel of it, their moment passing,<br class="">passing; nothing but sleep in their eyes.</span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; " class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Eavan Boland </p><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></body></html>