this is a poem for You
who sees my perfections
yet somehow overlooks my faults
who helps me uphold a pretense of
infallibility
even if You don’t know it
Your chin up, tall, cascades of brown
hair
more insouciance than I could ever hope
to have
sometimes they tell me I look like You
I should be so lucky
Your clear blue eyes see in me
things I could never see myself
reaffirming every day the love the world
has for me
i’ll never understand you
i’ll never live up to you
and I can’t bear You, because i’ll never
reach you
but i’ll never stop loving You
those off-color jokes that aren’t always
funny
and don’t always make me laugh?
I’ll never want to say it
but I love them, because they’re you
because, despite it all, you are me
and I am you
whether we know it or not
so I write this for Me, for You, my
Mother
who is fifty, going on fifteen.