Later, they will tell me I didn’t smile for a year. They will tell me that I look like her, that I move like her, that I sound like her. They will tell me, in not so many words, that I am her daughter and so I cannot be anything else.  I know none of this. I am six years old and my universe has been torn up and spat at my feet.
   They will tell me that she loved singing and baking and gardening. That she was a queen in one and a goddess in the others. That she moved like a dancer. They will tell me, with closed-lip-smiles and tantrums in the vegetable aisle, that she has laid my future out for me. That no one could compete. I am eight and I know this.   

  They will try to tell me that my voice is that of a songbird’s. I am ten years old and I do not sing.        They will try to tell me that the world greens at my touch. I am twelve years old and I do not garden.         They will try to tell me that my bones are young, that I shouldn’t be hurting. I am fourteen years old and I do not tread lightly.    
   They will try to tell me        They will try to      
 They will try 
       They will fail         They will fail as I have         They will fail as I have stopped           They will fail as I have stopped listening          I am seventeen years old when I claim my birthright. My kingdom blooms. A spatula is my scepter and my sword is a ballpoint pen. My cape is a choir robe and its folds rest like wings at my back.             And I ascend, limping, with a crown of Devil’s Ivy on my brow.