Poetry Month 1: The Looking Glass

There are too many faces in the mirror.
The light bounces off my mother's nose,
dances in my grandmother's dimple
and pauses at the edges of the full lips
of an unknown Cherokee Nation ancestress.

My eyes change color daily, hourly
when there are too many faces in the mirror.
Mine are eyes that reflect my bright blue classroom,
my soft blue children,
the grey of my inner self
and the pale green of "You must be Irish."

But I'm not a natural redhead - 
the fire is inside - 
or even the blonde of my angelic naive youth.
I dutifully hide the grey of my womanhood from everyone
except the too many faces in the mirror
who silently judge anyway.

The judgments scar as much as the stitches
over my eyebrow from that drunken night,
or the chicken pox mark just over my cheekbone.
The nose is too big and the cheeks are too fat and the flaws are all only mine

even
when

there are too many faces in the mirror.

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