inheritance

on this day in history, what i was is already dead.
an ancient evil rises, poseidon-like,
over my head and swallows all my
wandering waves of hair. the power that i had!
when i sang, the argonauts sank their ship.

evil breaches my doorway, an idea older than chronos:
he seeks my hearth, sits at the kitchen table,
perched like an overfed vulture.

oh, all the things i could have been,
if left to bear only this child and not this pain;
i am old, i am worn, i am grey, and my skin
grows dry with every passing midnight.
(what is it to mourn your own youth?)
i am a raging, sighing daughter of the earth.
when i sang, odysseus tore his flesh for me.

and this day, this morning, when you and i come in together,
is also known as a sunday; a day in cold midwinter that
does nothing, says nothing, is nothing.
your hand on mine, what does it signify?
we cross borders every day, you and i,
and it is in these crossings that i learned to love you.
i wonder where our feet will go tomorrow.

the rocks in the garden walls, holding back the river floods,
the stones building the arch of our gate,
the pebbles falling out of our pockets after we lounge on the beach:
underfoot and in between our toes and
rough against the grain of our skins,

i don't like the colors of the rocks
because they do not mix.

maybe after years of pressure from the earth,
maybe after eons of hot hot heat,
maybe after my inheritance is taken away
(the blood inheritance, the flesh inheritance,
my name, my body, my meaning),
maybe after there exists a brown little boy
who is an anagram of father and mother,
maybe when my narrative is given over to a tired tombstone
or someone else's sweaty palms—

my tired, aching song. all the change is gone.
the words are old, the methods ancient;
i could never sink a modern crew now
the way i sank the argonauts then.
for weeks i have been dousing my vocal cords in
lemon acerbity, alcoholic sting,
the persuasiveness of tasting someone else's mouth.

the old evil rises again, enters my doorway
and sits down for tea. he sits, sycophantic, with
his knees tucked into his chest.
he is all one mind, convinced by his own repetitions.
and this tea, on this sunday, is accompanied by my descant
pleading for reason, pleading for the power of
sight over supposition: because we all run red when injured
and today i am dressed in gore.

and this sunday, next september, every sundown,
these are my witnesses. these, and the song of my son
who is not yet born, and the lyrics that leach
power out of the old evil;
when i sing, history hums in bitter discord.
when i sing, the sinking hopes of sailors keen in the wind.
when i sing, all the granite and phosphate and limestone
and sandstone and obsidian of the world
rise out of the earth and run together
in one great conglomerate feast;
and my little boy kicks in my womb.