Resemblance
I never thought I looked like anyone
in my family, my hair red, my skin
dotted with freckles, so different from
my brown-haired parents, one brother’s
frame crowned with that same dark,
the other brother with features that
copied my grandfather’s face.
The first person who ever spoke of
a resemblance was the ambulance
attendant who brought my mother
home from hospice to die. You favor her,
she smiled, as she helped me adjust
the oxygen tubes. Then, at the wake,
each friend and neighbor echoed the same.
In the old photograph of the two of us,
we wear matching dresses and the same
conspiratorial smirk, and I see that I have
always carried her in me. Now that she is
gone, the mirror is where I find her.
Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of
my own face or hands and say hello.
*
Donna Vorreyer is the author of To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), all from Sundress Publications. Her poetry, fiction, and essay work have appeared in Ploughshares, Cherry Tree, Poet Lore, Salamander, Harpur Palate, Booth, and many others. She lives and creates in the Chicago area and hosts the monthly online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey.
Hard to say how familiar this feels – beautifully told.