Look Alikes

"Mr. Meier, a 49-year-old Swiss native with a craggy-boyish resemblance to the late actor Anthony Perkins..." Suburban Journal, NY Times, Friday, July 9, 1993. (A16)

For the third time I have been told
By strangers that I resemble
A famous actress: each time
I am astounded for I know that
We are not related and furthermore
I am twenty years her senior, shortish,
And never dressed smartly,
Downright slovenly at home, though
Not quite "grunge" (I like my
Fingernails to be clean.)

An expression comes over someone's face
As I am told how something about me
Is like this famous actress.
It is certainly not my figure
They have reference to or my speech,
A North Carolina Piedmont drawl
Unhurried by years in the West.

Wanting to laugh out loud,
I smile instead and look pleased.
The cited resemblance is surely
Meant to flatter--fatuous as it seems.
It would surprise the famous actress
To be told, by friends or strangers
That she and I are look alikes;

I peer in the mirror for some clue
To this puzzle and finding none
A way to accept it for what it's worth,
Knowing no one means to insult me
By association with a movie star.

[Poem by Virginia McKinnon Mann. I suspect that these verses were written not long after July 9th, 1993. The article quoted in the beginning can be found online: "Down-to-Earth Methods On a Back-to-Earth Farm".]