Inheritance

Her hands stayed busy,

 folding sorrow into tins,

 stacking them in cupboards

 as if grief could be stored,

 opened later,

 shared out like bread.

 The tins rattled sometimes,

 late at night,

 a faint clatter

 when the house shifted in its sleep.

 She told us it was nothing,

 only mice,

 but I knew the sound of sorrow

 trying its lid.

 She scrubbed the floor

 until the linoleum split,

 knees blue,

 palms raw,

 water clouded with suds and penance.

 Not prayer,

 but something like it—

 her own liturgy of bleach.

 We learned to keep still,

 to hold our tongues

 until the quiet grew heavier than us,

 until even the table

 seemed to bow beneath it.

The house leaned into its own hush.

 Doors refused to slam.

 Floorboards swallowed their groans.

 Even the walls learned not to creak.

 Silence drifted through us

 like damp in the plaster,

 creeping, unremarked,

 staining everything it touched.

 It was not gift,

 not legacy,

 but a weight wrapped carefully

 and passed from hand to hand,

 as if it might one day

 belong to me.