an inheritance

i wake between moonset and sunrise,
the sky brimming with broken things
and my mother’s mother beckoning. she is
twenty-four and eighty-eight,
seventeen and sixty—i am
a sliver of myself, halved
and halved again under the scalpel
of her gaze. she takes me
up to the roof-deck,
two splintered steps at a time.

we bask in onyx and obsidian,
in the blackest of sapphires—
the same darkness that hangs
from her neck, that chokes
each of her ring fingers. an heirloom
for your wedding day, she says,
and one day, for your daughter’s.
she drapes the moonless night
around my shoulders, and i bear
its weight—beaming, weeping.

she does not tell me about the boys.
reader, i do not ask her.

About the author

Cailín Frankland (she/they) is a British-American writer and public health professional based in Baltimore, Maryland. Their work has been featured in numerous print and online publications and nominated/shortlisted for several awards. They live with their spouse, two old lady cats, a rotating cast of foster animals, and a 70-pound pitbull affectionately known as Baby. You can find them on Twitter/X as @cailin_sm.

Photo by Paul Lichtblau on Unsplash.