Heirlooms

RUNNER UP FOR THE 2021 PINK POETRY PRIZE

My forebearers kept secrets like some people keep

money in the mattress, safe until 

the house catches fire, until 

the hillsides are burning, until the canopy

has turned to ash that falls, 

covers the ground, crushes underfoot, 

no, not like snow, like ash, 

like death. Call it what it is. 

When I was born, I was swaddled in 

a blanket of secrets. Secrets swirled 

into my formula I couldn’t keep down. 

Secrets swam like tadpoles in my muddy river veins,

secrets braided like colorful ribbons into my hair. I

brought those secrets to homeroom class. Heaped

onto my plate at dinner 

secrets with mashed potatoes on the side, when

the family would gather around the table,

looking ready to fight but simply saying, Pass

the gravy, please. The one with the secret

ingredient, that tastes lightly of 

war and burying a child. 

The secrets I must believe in 

without even knowing what they are 

except that they are also mine, that 

the eldest child receives as many 

secrets in the will as the youngest. 

Heirlooms that ask nothing of me 

except to keep them forever, jot them 

in the margins of my entire life, 

to accept them, finally, like faith, 

a mantle I throw around my shoulders.