Sometimes in the mirror
I see my right eyelid droop
the way my mother’s eyelids
used to do.
This fills me with pleasure.
I have also inherited two rings,
pale amethyst and tiger’s eye,
and a silver deer necklace.
I have inherited her craving
for love and for honor,
her sadness,
and her tendency to ask
“What have I done wrong?”
Also her love for fabrics
and textures, and fourteen pages
of hand-written memoir in which
she mentions people she wishes
she could see again.
“Maybe in heaven,” she wrote.
I have inherited her dreams
of independence,
and her rarely used wings.
Beate Sigriddaughter, www.sigriddaughter.net, grew up in Nürnberg, Germany. Her playgrounds were a nearby castle and World War II bomb ruins. She was poet laureate in Silver City, New Mexico (Land of Enchantment) 2017-2019.
© 2020, Beate Sigriddaughter
Halfway Down the Stairs 