Inheritance
I got your jewelry, a couple of scarves, and an
old dress
I claimed just because it looked like you.
But familiar though the earrings are, the scarf,
the dress,
the emerald pin, no matter how I squint into
the past
I can’t make out your face and now I fear
I never really saw it. Being a mother too,
this worries me.
But also when you died I got your books
and, reading them, I find you after all.
Your voice, your voice, with sweetest clarity,
rings through the words you chose to share
with me.
And so in fear of leaving my kids
motherless—
and as a feeble recompense for all the times
I sneak into their rooms at night
to beg forgiveness from their twitching
eyelids
for the petty strictness of my ways—
the one thing I make sure of all my days
is that they get my voice.
Stories they will build their worlds on, stories
teaching how to yearn, tales that break
their hearts apart then knit them back
a little softer—all the words I got from you.
Your voice in mine will carry on
in their bright dreams after I’m gone.
Darlene Young lives in South Jordan, Utah, with her husband and four sons. She serves as the secretary for the Association for Mormon Letters and is acting poetry editor of Segullah. This year her baby is in kindergarten, and my how those afternoons fly!
