I lift my five-year-old
body on the chair to watch
her fingers lift blush powder,
(burnt rose), to her face.
The strokes seem counted
out, maybe twenty brushes
on each cheekbone. In the mirror
I mimic her, but she doesn't
smile, and instead, dabs
perfume on her wrists and neck,
combs back her stiff, chestnut
hair cut short above the ear,
a bird's nest, a crown, adjusts
an opalescent button in the silk
blouse's eye, the stockings
already torn. Without a word,
sigh, in haste she chooses
large, red, faux bijou beads
to hide the pale olive in her skin.
I know these things make her
stand apart from the others,
PTA mothers, grocery clerks,
the women in afternoon dramas.
I will grow to resemble her: our eyebrows
too dark, two brush strokes of rain
clouds, our noses edged pyramids,
always causing a double look, a glance.
She rubs cream under the eyes'
half-moons, taupe for the lids.
To match her nails (another burnt hue
of red) she fumbles for the final touch
on her mouth. She needs to hurry
before they arrive: the relatives
who have been missing for years,
names mentioned, tossed photos
in a shoebox, phone calls cut short,
people she hated to leave behind
in Syria while she and my father
made the trek to the States.
I know there is something
even more unique about her
than the others, because as she swirls
the lipstick toward her mouth, one
hand smoothes the color on, while
the other dabs the crying that's
begun. She does this without a change
of face, she does this as if it's part
of dressing, of carrying on.