So Straight, So Stoic, So Elegant

If ever a flower there was, that flower was you in girlhood.
Everything in you was flowery, your lips, your dress,
your manners.

It seems to me I knew you once,
but was it memory, vision or hoax?
None of the above, it was the mirror talking back.

At 15 she was married, at 17 widowed
to never again (by oath) to gaze into the looking glass.
She ties her hair by touch.
For 70 years into a bun.

Then one day, by chance this time,
while passing the new ten story store in town,
she sees in its window, her reflection.

And unbeknown to her that it's her own,
she muses, "My, what a pretty old lady!"