When the tall lanky millennial
who just bought land up the road
tells me his girlfriend looks just
like me and has my mannerisms,
I am skeptical but curious.
But when the twenty-something
schoolteacher walks through
the door with a pixie cut, saucer
eyes dominating an elfin face,
giggling, fingers fluttering,
I feel like I am in a time capsule,
watching my twenty-something self.
You look just like Goldie Hawn,
I say like everyone said to me
when I was her age. Of course,
she has no idea who I am talking
about. She points to my younger
photos plastering the wall.
Is that Goldie Hawn? she asks.
When all the neighbors file in
with their casserole dishes
and salads, they tell her:
You look just like your mom.
If I doubt she exists, all I do
is look at the wall and there
we stand two golden goddesses
with identical cheekbones and smiles.
Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published several poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014) and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021) and Survivors, Saints, and Sinners forthcoming by Cyberwit. Her work has also appeared in Black Coffee Review, Terror House Review, Trouvaille Review, ONE ART, Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam, Spillwords, Muddy River Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review, The Five-Two, and The Song Is…
Sparks of Calliope 