Inheritance

She is
Therefore I become
A short stout figure of a firm woman with unbrushed hair
Who wears slippers out of practicality with hands
Always ready to receive
A stray animal with a broken hind leg or
A sad adult man who never grew up

She is
Therefore I become
A fearful spender who inherited second-hand knowledge of scarcity
But hoards pilefuls of old plastic bottles and unopened gifts
Lists of suppressed desires and dissatisfaction
With this empty house and that old car

She is
Therefore I become
A desperate pilgrim of stability
But a self-sufficient fortress
We have varicose-veined legs from walking too far in search of
Ourselves and the things they told us to find
Longing to collapse and concede defeat and finally
Self-acceptance

She is
Therefore I become
A dusty antiquity neglected
Accumulated anger sometimes going berserk over
A word mispronounced or a letter unsent
Before quietly tearing up by the ancestral stove but
Never indulging in the luxury of a good cry.

Artwork by Gustav Klimt "Portrait of Adele Boch-Bauer" 1907.