dark and graceful as Chaplin’s Little Tramp
but faceless.
My face is a shadow of my mother’s.
My sisters and brother favor my dad.
Returning a favor is both the shadow
and substance of gratitude.
Women who hunger for substantial words
emerge from the shadows.
Hunger is a powerful shadow.
Shade is the shadow of color.
The owl’s call colors dawn,
sometimes overshadows light.
Imitation is sometimes
the sincerest form of shadowing.
Shadow those women imitating
the faceless wind gathering strength.
~Margaret Rozga
from Holding My Selves Together: New & Selected Poems (Cornerstone Press 2021)
originally published in Mom Egg Review. Reprinted with permission of the author.
