When I find myself before a mirror I did not expect to be there—in a restaurant, a movie theater, a friend’s hallway—there is a fraction of a second in which I do not recognize myself, a sense of déjà vu before I realize that the face is familiar because it is mine. Reading a villanelle requires a similar adjustment, as the same lines appear in subtly evolving contexts. This poem takes Joan of Arc out of her historical context and places her in a contemporary house of mirrors.

Isabelle Doyle is a writer pursuing her PhD in Literary Arts at the University of Denver, where she is a poetry editor for Denver Quarterly. Her work has appeared in Academy of American Poets, Los Angeles Review, Typo Magazine, Jersey Devil Press, Hole in the Head Review, and elsewhere.