Heritage

 I don’t remember stories at bedtime,

Or goodnight kisses, or anything much beyond

“Clean your plate” or “Time for bed.”

My mom was not my friend;

She gave orders.

I never thought she liked me much,

or I, her. My sister was first,

my brother, the long-awaited boy.

I was just...there.

 

She’s gone, now; and I

don’t think of her every day,

don’t even miss her that much.

She is not a constant presence, 

a voice in my conscious thoughts.

But, as I walk my neighborhood,

I find myself naming hostas and smoke trees,

cannas and daylilies,

hydrangeas and portulacas...

 

I know them all:

those names my mother taught me,

the gift bequeathed to me alone, 

as I sat atop the flat brown rock

in her hillside garden--

her third-best child,

surrounded by her violets;

me, there, in her garden,

among her other loves.