A vacant mirror looking at itself

Rayfish by Mary Hickman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"There are no feelings in this piece--there is nothing but instinct." So writes Mary Hickman in one of her prose poems in this collection. There seems a craftlessness that is perhaps intended. These seems more stream-of-consciousness essays than prose poems, but I must be wrong. The collection won the Laughlin award after all. "I generally know I am sick the moment I take the photo," she writes, weaving medical procedures with art works, foreign stays with family matters. We wonder what is biographical and what is fantasy--but I do not wonder enough to reread. For me, something is missing. A phantom limb perhaps. A vacant mirror looking at itself?

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