Are you still writing about —?

Yes, I am still writing

about my mother. About my

mothers. About the ways 

in which they became 

who they were to me; but

long before that: to, for,

and from each other. How

not even the years can fade

the quality of their scent,

the gestures that remain

embedded in every piece

of furniture, in every green

ceramic mixing bowl that survived

the years of their marriage to make 

its way into mine, with all 

the hairline cracks spread across

the surface. Yes, I am still

writing about my questions, about

the thousand thousand ways a whisper

carries even in the absence of wind

from out of the depths of a cabinet

emptied of its secrets. Because 

the end of a story is only 

convention, because convention 

dictates whose names may appear

on registers and documents 

and deeds, as well as who 

doesn't get to inherit. 

But inherit we all do—if not 

the shape of an eyebrow

then the places moles turn up, 

giveaway signs on the map

of the weathering body: saying

you too have a penchant for men

of a certain age, or you too

love the texture and frill 

of a garment for the way 

it seduces the mind into thinking 

it might forget what histories

groped and penetrated you in that 

loamy dark before you came to be.