Inheritance

What have I
To say in my wrong tongue
Of what is gone To know something is
Lost but what You have forgotten what
You long forgot If I am
What survives I am here but I am not
Much of anything at all To be what’s left
And all the rest scooped out
And dropped into the sea My flesh
Forming a knot on itself is a habit
Learned from whom A mind reaching back
Into the dark a body releasing itself
Backward into space a faith
I have no prayer in which to keep
Am I home or merely caught
Between two unmarked graves
I’m saying where we live
It’s a mistake A compromise
I’m made to make
I’m told come willingly
Halfway across a bridge to where
I’m halfway human Or else
A door bricked over
Behind which all I am
To be shadow cast by shadows cast
By no one’s hand And now
Whose fault am I It’s said
I stand against the grain
Of natural law A being in chaos
In argument with itself What would it be
To be simply I am here but what of me
That’s gone stays gone