She lived in every mirror, every frame,
and Cassiopeia looked — and looked too long.
One glance: the dare, the beauty, and the claim
that loveliness could make a woman strong.
It made her rigid. Chamber after chamber
the heart contracted, calcified, went still —
bone-shaped like love, bone-cold, each slow remainder
of feeling hardening against its will.
She dared me once, that face behind the glass.
I answered. Lifted my chin. Held the gaze.
Too many years of that — and now, alas,
the surgeon's knife arrives too late to raise
what ossified in silence, year by year:
a heart that learned to armour, not to feel.