JESSICA RATIGAN

Inheritance

Dried blue mist flower
and starved aster arranged
in the bowl on her table

among other household
offerings—pears, apples, candles.

A girl’s voice still reverberates
from the dining room walls. Mine.
Brushed across the veneer,

my sister’s pretty hands
run along battered oak. Mother

worries the curtains. In August
the sun dips down past the asphalt
horizon, each day earlier.

Quiet: except to savor
the milky breath of years

gone—grandfather clock, mirror
cutlery clacking the plates.
And this, the white space.  

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   Contributor’s notes   
   March 19, 2003