Vanity

by MonaLisa Ortiz-Rosa 

Imposters everywhere. Vanity all vanity, posing as props, as art.
“useless” my father would call me, not
Like my sisters who could clean and mop, or
My brother who could fix a car- even if it was just
A model, a toy -still, all of this contributed somehow to life’s
Invitation to put up your dukes, Engage.
I sat back and read…If I wasn’t reading I was mulling,
In reverie, In the act of noticing
So useless made sense. It was evidence
My father recognized art, not for outcome
But for it’s goodwill, it’s goodness
For the love of the thing -what art aroused
How it compelled virtue and beauty to assert itself
In the midst of struggle and deadlines and poverty
We all mattered, took form, added worth
In our individual ways in a family of imposters and clowns
We all pretended, assumed places in his preposterous mansion
And in mother’s deep depression.