Heritage
by Jenn Powers
When I looked at you
I saw milky blue eyes, lighting
holy candles in memory of the dead.
You were a tough one, boiling
blood-red borscht and sucking the marrow
out of cooked chicken bones.
You kept bottles of heart meds
on your bureau, Crucifix beads
snaked around sun-spotted fists.
You knew how to survive.
You showed me how
to elude danger by chopping off the heads
of snakes with a hoe, and eating slivers
of fresh garlic from the blade of a knife.
But then—
I found you in the bathtub
of blood, after your husband died,
like you were simmering
in a pot of that Old World borscht
because you were too drunk, fell,
and cracked your head open,
and I ran into the living room,
cigarette smoke yellowing the walls,
channel three on low.
As they pulled you out of the tub,
I remembered the two of us hunting
for wild mushrooms, you cautioning me
to be aware, to know how to identify
what’s safe to eat, to touch
because dying was too easy
and you told me to live
with my eyes open
like birds of prey.
Your claw-like hand would rip
the soft sprouts from the damp earth
and you’d say, Know what you’re picking,
or else—and then your face turned witch
and you slit your own throat
using one quick swipe
with that arthritic finger,
a threat so tangible, that, for a second,
I thought it really happened.