"tell us, can't you, are there any stars inside your black fedora?"

- Elizabeth Bishop, "Exchanging Hats"

Thumbing through role models, I suddenly knew
I would never, in a googolplex of millennia, wish
To be either of my aunts, and knowing
Who I will not be, who I am became new,
Baptized like a window scrubbed for spring.
Still, I am not done with you, weird ladies. I've new
Cells every seven years, but problems don't turn new.
As we age, we boil down but stay the same-
Type stew. Dear aunts, dissimilar, am I the same
As you? Inescapably the self I never knew?
Two American women, strange to be
Each other's in-laws, X's in the math of who I am.

When I slid out, easy as a fish, and was
In the doctor's hands, a creamy lump, brand new
In rubber gloves, crying my own tune, it seemed I was
A putty replica of my Aunt Sandy. I was
"Just like her," everybody said,as wishes
are like prayers, or to mirror is to be.
Or for a sliver of a nanosecond, I was
Her perfect Doppelganger, my clockwork springing
With a whir the same pitch as hers: clone buds in spring
Who unfold in summer, destined to be
Different as operas of notes, from operas of soap. The same
Atoms woven as grass in us no longer seem the same,

And I no longer feel a bit the same
As you or the Play-Doh effigy I was.
You're sweet and kind, but plain as potatoes, the same
Day after day after day, like reading the same
Times, until one's eyes are dyed black and white by the news.
I switch opinions like exchanging hats -- the same
Kango of dogma I treasured on Monday, by the same
time next week, will be traded for a crown of wishes
Or a laurel of doubts. I could only wish
To be as sure as you -- ethics always fitting the same.
But life is like a double dream, and spring
The moss upon the rock. If from the rock's red core a spring

Would gush to quench my thirst, I could have faith like you and spring
Into action, lotus from Vishnu's navel. All the same,
I would never write a poem. Doubt is the spring
In my gears, the foul-mouthed fountain from which springs
Dreams and tears. Sadly, to be or not to be
Is an anthem which hoarsens the throat and dries the spring.
But my other aunt is a snob sans taste (winter judging spring
as being unseasonably warm, brilliant, and new).
Draconic, she judges without justice. When I was new
In my crib, her now ex-husband, a Barbie doctor, sprung
It on my mom that if (like hell!) she wished,
With a nip here, a tuck there, I could be pretty as a wish.

Aesthetics without empathy is like the obscene wish
Of a child who craves eternal spring.
His hopes dashed, he spends his life ruining others' wishes.
Dear aunt, you're cruel and cold as pennies in a wishing
Well, if you don't feel a pang upon your heart -- the same
For others' spoiled hopes as for your own moldy wishes.
I too can be a snob, but I have no wish
To end like you, judging people's souls upon their teeth. To be
The sort of fool who values time by surface is
To be the fool who wakes to find life a foiled tinny wish.
Dear aunt, we all suffer as you do. I know
Life is disappointing, but hope and kindness make each day new.

Thumbing through role models, I suddenly knew
My aunts and, knowing them, knew my wishes,
The wishy-washy and the changeless, reliable as crocuses in spring.
In the spring of my life, I found I was not the same
As those two autumn ladies, and that I was the same,
knowing I am that I am.

THE END