This nose, these eyes, plagiarized.
The sway of my hips, this too,
an heirloom taken from my mother
who copied it from hers.
The concoction for green eyes,
like a family secret,
locked up tight.
And from my father,
the defiance of this nose,
the intensity of my stare,
the grounding of my stance.
All collected when he wasn’t looking.
Had I been faster,
the arch of his brow
and the curl of his smile
would have been mine as well.
Those my sister stole.
Now and then, I catch
something familiar in the way
my son matches my gaze.
I watch carefully
as my daughter eyes my profile
and stands in the shadows,
feet ready to pounce.
is a poet living in upstate New York. She is a former magazine and book editor,
and freelance writer. Her work has appeared in IthacaLit, ragazine.cc,
and Newport Review.