Today’s poem is part of both #VerseLove from Ethical ELA and Slice of Life Tuesdays. The poetry challenge is to explore an inherited gesture, belief, or ritual.
Here’s my go at it:
Birthright
In poker and chess,
It’s called a tell:
Worlds revealed
In a flick, a blink, a twitch
For me,
It’s my father’s response
To frustration, impatience, annoyance:
The double-palmed face rub,
Followed by fingertips
Pressed to the eyes
Subtle, right?
What I’d give to
Deny my patterning:
I’ve tried
Sitting on hands
Taking deep breaths
Folding my arms
But what can be done?
It’s a dubious inheritance,
Just like
Oddly-shaped fingers
The knack for trivia
My wiry, curly hair
The nasty habit of punnery
A tendency to burst into song
The shadow of dementia
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 
It is amazing how we end up turning into our parents, isn’t it? My dad told me I should never play poker because everything is written on my face. LOL. I felt like imitating your dad’s double-palmed face rub while I read your poem. I think it is something I do at the end of the school day when the kids are gone.
Thank you! And oh! I can definitely see myself doing that at the end of the school day. I also caught myself doing it during my second-grade group. Trying to get them to work today was, as my colleague would say, “character-building.”
I really appreciate your line of a “dubious inheritance” as I get older and become all things my parents I cannot control!
Yes! Although, I have to also admit there are things I’m glad I got from them as well: my patience, my love of family…
Some traits we get from our parents we just can’t hide. I think in a way that makes us closer to them when they are no longer here.
Agreed! And when I find myself acting out those traits, it still often catches me by surprise, but yes. I feel closer to them in those moments.