Love Above The Sink: a surreal vanity poem for students

Love Above The Sink

I admire my reflection
My reflection gives a wink
I blow kisses at my beauty
Love unfolds above the sink

Can’t help kiss my cute reflection
Who can blame me with those lips?
In the bathroom, twin pant-dancers
shake their super funky hips

Then I pout at my reflection
but my mirror-image grins
Five familiar grasping fingers
Grab my neck and pull me in

through the crack in my reflection
to the mirror’s other side
As I scream, he leaves the bathroom
and then smirks and waves goodbye

How I bang for my reflection
to come back and set me free
How I long to tell my parents
that he isn’t really me

The next morning, my reflection
saunters in like I’m not there
As I shout, ‘They’re MY pyjamas!’
he just winks and gels his hair


Mark Bird ©2011

💡 Literacy Lesson Ideas for Teachers and Students:

Love Above The Sink is a darkly whimsical vanity poem for students that explores themes of self-obsession, identity, and the surreal consequences of loving one’s reflection a little too much. This poem begins playfully, revelling in self-admiration, before spiralling into a horror-tinged tale of being replaced by a reflection-turned-impostor. Students can use this poem to explore the fine line between confidence and narcissism, discuss the metaphor of the mirror self, and consider how humour and horror can coexist in verse. Lesson ideas include: (1) writing their own “mirror poems” from the point of view of a reflection; (2) analysing how rhyme and rhythm add to both the charm and eeriness of the poem; (3) discussing literary devices like personification and tone shifts; and (4) exploring myths and stories about doppelgängers or vanity, such as Narcissus or Jekyll and Hyde, to connect literature across time and genre.

#VanityPoemforStudents