Tortoiseshell Vanity Set

In Elise Paschen’s poem “Outside the Door,” the speaker begins by stating, “I am the hairbrush, / bristles face-down, the mother / left behind on the bureau.” In the second stanza, the speaker becomes “the mirror / on the mother’s vanity / in the bathroom upstairs.” The hairbrush and mirror on display here belonged to Gertrude Conway Vanderbilt, benefactor of the Vanderbilt Reading Series.