How the Pieces of Our Parents Make Their Way Into Us

Photos taken by Joel Allegretto. 

I am more like my mother & even more like my father, than I ever anticipated.
& yet I am the most like myself
& most days, I like this.

I am my father’s daughter.
Bouts of impulse.
A night’s sleep stolen by the lure of book pages.
Few spoken words yet plenty thoughts.
Silent car rides echoing loud peace.

I am my mother’s daughter.
Tidying spaces for guests—“piling” with intentions of “later”.
A single, slow tear as a song moves us.
The surety that trees indeed whisper kind things, just to me.
Falling asleep during a Friday evening movie.

All these things you once merely observed without understanding—they start to become you.
All that lineage beauty,
of generations old,
birthed within your very soul.

You look upon your mother & father—or perhaps pictures & memories if that’s what you have left of them—& you speak a bit kinder,

Because you’re starting—only starting—to understand.

I cannot help being their daughter.
I cannot help loving being theirs.
I cannot help hoping my one-day daughter will love to be mine.