The Other


They all looked so clean cut:
sharp angles, healthy curves, fine features, 
chiseled to an All-American profile.
They presented variations on a theme,
handsome boys who played trombone,
fetching girls who danced quite seriously,
each successive one in their many numbers
slightly different from respective predecessor.
They stood up proudly for each other,
as if a team, an army, a legion of sorts.
You could see them in attendance 
at plays and band recitals, taking up 
whole rows in the school auditorium,
watching performing brothers and sisters,
stately grandparents mixed in with 
older and younger brethren, 
rooting as one for the filial cause.
My dysfunctional family could not have
been more disparate:
small, bickering, miserable, 
raising argument to an art form.
Maybe that explains my love and envy,
watching those pretty faces
devoted to watching kith and kin,
wearing secret smiles, an inner society 
which I could never hope to join.
While my heart realized 
no family could manage 
such an aura of perfect paradise,  
they seemed to master the illusion.
I studied them before the lights went down
and during lengthy intermissions, 
longing in dreams to be accepted
as one of their brethren band,
sitting in those long rows,
one of the beautiful family.