Do I Look Like Him?

--by Linda Dayan

I remember new shoes dirtied by field’s mud
Tarnished by the past day's rain,
and my own insistence to play soccer in its consequences.
I remember your face,
when I came home with freshly brown sneakers.
I remember passion plagued arguments,
Twirling in the tension between us.
I remember going to bed bothered not by new bruises
but by the fact you didn’t come to tuck me in that night.

I remember a silver pair of fish earrings,
each with one sapphire eye.
one drowned in the alphabet carpet of recess gaga games.
I remember searching for hours,
I remember not needing the dictionary to understand “loss”.
I remember tears trailing traitorously onto the letter F.
I thought maybe the fish earring would fall on F,
or maybe E.
I remember going home and suffocating,
on the definitions of irresponsibly and regret.
And I remember the nickname pirate,
Though I forget on whose insistence
That I went to school with my lonely fish.


I remember the last project done for me,
The last posterboard.
it was going to frame my first-ever poem.
we poured over it for hours,
it was a heart completed by puzzle pieces,
as if the surface anticipated heartbreak.
inside each piece, we wrote out "peace"
with steady hands,
we wrote "peace" in every language Google offered.
I remember criticism for crude calligraphy.
I remember wasting a bottle of whiteout,
a testament to my bountiful mistakes.
but most of all I remember patience.
I remember realizing,
you are just a mother doing her best,
so I as your daughter can be mine.