Inheritance

Written by Tabitha Lawrence

This life which chose me,

Full of things unspeakable that I

never shut up about

Is making me obsessed with leaving something behind

For the children of the child I don’t even have yet.

I want them to know me (us)

Not because I have any delusions of a lasting impression 

But just

To have something to carry in their hands and say yes, this.

It’s all there and now, now we can get on with our lives.

I’d tell them, I release you from this duty.

Remember, but don’t waste so much time

Digging for the dead that you miss out on the people

You haven’t lost yet. You will, soon enough.

What I want more than relics, more than 

I care to admit, is for someone to tell me that now.

But we’re sentimental little fools,

Clinging to our ancestral birthright—hard boiled eggs in doctored up Ragu

That’s been bubbling on the stove all day

Yellow smoke stained walls

Ornate marble and velvet and that wallpaper of Venice

Or is it a mural, hand painted?

You never really know who’s lying. 

It’s part of the charm. See also:

The Christmas tree up so late that they decide to leave it up all year

A hand crocheted table cloth covered in mail

The table set each night with empty cereal bowls and juice glasses

And a dixie cup of vitamins for each of us

In the dish: the round soap for faces, the rectangular for hands

Nana putting on her face in the morning

Her stockings and Avon lotion and fake diamond 

earrings colored with a green sharpie (her “emeralds”)

Canned peaches in syrup

Touched by an Angel and 7th Heaven

La famiglia.

I’ve never yearned enough for the culture lost to me

Because there was always

So much 

else.

There’s no language, here. No men, either. 

No folk tales. No heritage to speak of. Just

Generations of Italian women 

Clipping up their beehives to sleep,

Teaching us to roll out headaches on hair spray cans

Gadgets for jars that won’t open

So we never need 

anyone else,

Threatening us with the sauce spoon when

We twirl our angel hair counter clockwise,

Playing praise cassettes in the hallway between the bedrooms 

as we fall asleep, whispering secrets and prayers,

growing old in the same house until that too is taken from them.

If I could have had a say, I would have tried to hold on harder to the stories.

I would have sat with them on the mismatched couch and simply listened.

I would have snuck an apron from the dining room drawer 

That they’d make us wear on spaghetti night.

In me is nothing of the motherland but big hair and

a big Italian snoz and the clustering of women,

alone. Things taken. Green ink scrawled on the back of a photograph.

But you see, it’s ours. And we’ve grown rather fond of it.