• the houses on my street all look the same.
    the color of cold clay, the blend, like
    the wash for a watercolor paintbrush,
    into gray.
    they slump like dunes on the beach, one
    just as rounded and plain as the other.
    they sit on streets that blur into
    each other
    lined with even-cut grass and square
    shrubs, and the "just washed for
    sunday cars" in driveways.
    You'd never find the house you search for
    without the numbers, some blocked, some
    curly, some hand-painted.
    And so i tell people look for the
    grandfather sitting in the front yard
    under the leaning tree. Thats my house.


    The Children in my family all look the
    same.
    Our faces and voices blend into a river
    that rolls, a blur, through the house..
    My mother calls all our names one after
    the other until she gets to the one she
    wanted.
    Our light brown hair, our "my clothes are
    your clothes are her clothes" wardrobe,
    our "you sound just like your sister"
    voices on the phone.
    No one knows for sure which of us is
    talking, yet if they could look into our
    they'd know the one they search for.
    And so i tell people look for the one
    thats's sitting in the front yard with
    the grandfather undr the leaning tree,
    listening.
    Thats the youngest sister.
    That's me.


    THe students in my school all look the
    same and conform, wear colors from a
    small range of choices.
    The jeans, shirts, and hair all the same
    lengths.
    The teachers see a flood of faces disinct
    in their features blurring into sameness.
    THe hair clips, the beltbuckles, the
    "straightend-to-look-done" hair, all in
    the same mode.
    One face merges into the next, like a row
    of freshly boiled eggs.
    We try to blend like the houses on my
    street, until one is ust as rounded and
    plain as the other.
    THe landscape of looks, sounds, and
    shapes in no longer a picture, just a
    wash of gray.
    And so i tell people look for the one who
    stands up o say look at me I'm sitting in
    the front yard under the leaning tree,
    waving to get your attention, with my
    curly hair, and last years'hand-me-downs,
    and a voice like the slow drip of
    yesterdays rain lingering in the leaves
    of the mimosa tree,
    that's me.