INHERITANCE
Turns out he’s
afraid
I’ll get better
and leave him
alone to suffer
our disease.
So I said,
gnarling the words:
maybe you won’t
play violin
any more. But you can sing.
And damn, right
there, age ten,
he did. What fathers share with
sons cannot be
captured live
for as he sang I
felt my hands
unclench, a small
straight pure
vibrato in my
spine
revive. There’s magic in these
gene cards that we
shuffle out.
Some might say
curse,
though they’d be
wrong.
We gambled when
we started
off. They’d say we
lost. But as he sang a sea arose
and washed a
beach.
We know, who
struggle now, the
monsters
that we wrestle
with; and see
as in dark mirrors
who we are. Through clouds
our glance is one
more gift
surprised: his copper hair, his
bright, too-wise
blue eyes.
Version first published in The Raven's Perch (Dec. 1, 2020)