My mother is as tall as my father. Also firstborn,
she always stood up in a fight to her full height.
Somehow, I explain this to my sisters
cowering together on the stairs, as a love
for each other. That she respected herself, matched
his volume like a radio dialing in to a station.
I didn’t inherit it. Taller than some, but not most,
I buy pants at all the usual stores. My sisters, though,
as graceful and distanced as Arabian horses. They
can see from the back of any crowd, and they do not
hunch. She only became afraid of him this past year.
In that, we all three favor our mother.
