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My mother says I’m lucky.
When she was sixty
her crows’ feet had spread
until it looked like crows
had walked all over her face.
"Your skin comes
from your father’s side of the family,"
she says, "the Italian side.
They don’t get wrinkles.
It’s all that olive oil.
"Look at your Aunt Rosa.
Her skin was so smooth
the mortician didn’t even need to use makeup,
but he did, of course,
they all do, heaven knows why.
Who wants to look like a madam
when they’re dead?
Don’t let them do it to me."
First published in Ilya’s Honey Spring 2004 and Nerve Cowboy Spring 2006.
Used with the author's permission.
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Born and raised in Los Angeles, Ruth Bavetta lives within sight of the Pacific. She has an MFA in Painting from Claremont Graduate School, has exhibited widely, and has taught Drawing and Art History at the college level. Her poetry has been published in Nimrod, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Hanging Loose, Rhino, Poetry East, and Poetry New Zealand, among others, and is included in the book, Twelve Los Angeles Poets. She loves the light on November afternoons, the smell of the ocean, a warm back to curl against in bed, and she hates pretense, fundamentalism, and sauerkraut.
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