Me

I think my children
look more like Joe Strickland
than I do,
their eyes a stranger's eyes
staring back at me
from the mirror's
cruel gaze.
their laughter echoes
a familiar stranger's tone
a cadence that's not mine
yet somehow still my own.
i search for myself
in them
but find only Joe's
worn face,
a crude drawing
of lines and creases
leading nowhere,
no trace
of the man I thought I was,
lost in the haze
of time
erased like a forgotten
phone number,
a crumpled rhyme.
their smiles
a haunting reminder
of the life I never lived,
a life that Joe Strickland
knew better
than I ever did.