i do not know my mothers face, a rhinoplasty took its place. i looked like you (the one she used to show, it's not the one i'm used to, though.) I wonder sometimes if my mother was there when I first noticed my own reflection, in a spoon or a mirror or something, but then again, of course she was -- it was her. Now, of course, I’m other things too -- but none really that I like so much, or at least that I take any pride in. The parts of me that aren’t her are the ones I think disappoint her. In the shadow of her sacrifices, I am aware I’ve come to this world on borrowed time, as I suppose we all do. I come to silly ideas like that while I attend this school, on borrowed money. And a poem I once read my father wrote It was in some old files written on the top hand corner Ashes I can't sweep up. Oh well. He was not very kind. My mother, who I have this first image of standing over my crib --- the crib slats are in the periphery -- and she...