inheritance
By Raphaela Pavlakos
you carry her weight with you
her eyes (your eyes)
you hold in the mirror like a spectre
twenty-five years gone
all she’s ever given you is need
to take a biscuit with your coffee, the fear of a broken heart
you wipe flour from your palms
your fingertips still smart
with the memory of your blood in her white kitchen grout
nails cut to the quick, unclean always not clean (enough)
brown tiles became a child’s game, a dare—who can step
in the room
the furthest the longest
who will be the first to burn
under the sting of wooden spoons,
fly swatters,
the back of her hand
your (true) inheritance is a soft smile
mango pits cradled in a chipped bowl
a sapphire nestled in silver threads that will be sold
before your fingers can press prints into smooth cuts
your birthright has always come cradled
in spent pistachio shells, reused yogurt containers
memory echoes like the reverberations of a fly swatter
glowing yellow like butter left on the scarred counter on a warm afternoon
your legacy is tears spilled on the green bus, hurtling west
whispering to the blue light of evening until it burns
white behind my eyelids
inhale
you count to four count again
exhale
breathing boxes, your blood simmers
the weight of your inheritance doesn’t feel so heavy
and your stomach doesn’t weep blood this year
Raphaela Pavlakos (she/her) is a 3rd year PhD candidate in McMaster University’s English and Cultural Studies department and a poet. Her research looks at Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee poetry and landscape as alternative sites of memory, using research-creation to intersect her scholarly and creative production. Raphaela’s poetry can be found in Ekphrastic Review (forthcoming), Folklore Review (forthcoming), Talon Review, Persimmon Review, Midsummer Magazine, Taj Mahal Review, Word Hoard, Sanctuary: A Cootes Paradise Anthology, and graduate journals like The Lamp. She co-authored a self-published poetry collection called Mythopoesis in 2022 with Georgia Perdikoulias, which is available through Kindle Direct Publishing.
Artwork Source: “Hold,” The Turning Leaf Journal
The Turning Leaf Journal 