Inheritance

I'm driving to work and the car in front stalls at a red light,

and I don't think, I just tap the horn,

one sharp sound, and it's his horn,

my father's exact gesture, his exact impatience,

the way his thumb would press into that plastic

to remind the world that time was moving,

and I feel my hands on the wheel,

the angle of my shoulders, the set of my jaw,

and I know he's in me now, not just the face

or the voice but the small movements,

the tiny expressions of frustration

that happen without permission,

and the car moves and I move with it,

and I keep my hands exactly where they are,

and I think about all the things I've promised myself

I wouldn't become, and how most of them

are already happening, are already mine,

are already so automatic I can't even see them,

and I wonder when it happened, when I stopped

being separate from him, when I became

just another version of the same thing,

and I know the answer—it was always like this,

it was always going to be like this,

it was written into my hands before I was born.