Immortal Nose

I have an immortal nose.
It is the nose of Aunt Barbara - who is a teacher, like me - happy, like me - and I want to be vibrant at 70 like her.
It is the nose of Grandma Baldwin - who was a giant in a petite package
- whose faith could pull you in - who hit things in her big car, like me.
My nose is hanging in a Vermont Museum on a prominent Baldwin of old,
on a woman who doesn't smile nearly as much as me.
The bones that show a hole where my nose used to be are buried,
in a small Upstate New York cemetery, in the casket of a woman
who led a more difficult life than me.
When I'm done here - my nose will live on -
giving some future little girl a ledge for her glasses,
if she happens also... to get my father's eyes.

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