Myrtle Applegate-Etgen, circa 1980
(from poetess' personal scrapbook)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The mirror lies—or maybe doesn't. These hands, pale rivers of raised veins, thin as tracing paper, are hers. I press my thumb to the back of my wrist, watch the blood retreat, then rush back~ a pulse we share across decades, like sunlight through leaves on the same stubborn oak. She is here, in the way my knees crackle in winter, in the age spots that bloom where hers once did. I am becoming a map she drew without knowing.
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