Contributor Series 10: Silken Rags
Inheritance
By Louis Gallo
A crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the Dead.
–Auden
Made in Occupied Japan, Belgium,
made in Sudan, Chicago, Bavaria,
these artifacts left behind,
tucked in corners, behind posts, on shelves,
stashed in secret niches throughout
my grandfather’s house,
antiques from across the planet,
contracted for thirty years
into a diminished place
with sealed windows.
When I pry them open
chisels of light pick at the gloom
as I dislodge chunks of plaster with a hatchet.
We must brighten up, scrub, disinfect,
polish, spin the roof on it axis …
though something always gets lost
in the undoing.
People took longer to die in those days.
My grandfather lay curled like a shrimp
at the end, yet I sense him here scowling,
flinch at his disapproval.
I was rolling flat white latex on the ceiling
above the massive china cabinet he built
and dropped a few beads on the woodwork.
I swear he grabbed the roller from my hand
and made me wipe up the mess
with the skin of my palms.
Atop the cabinet, some twelve feet up,
I found a large brass key
buried under layers of greasy dust.
I showed it to my father, who knows
the details of our past like sacred script.
“It’s the key,” he said (surprised I didn’t know)
“to the family tomb. We keep it up there
so nobody steals or
misplaces it.
misplaces it.
Put it back.”
So there is this key to a grave
in my new house, and my angry grandfather
hides tools I need, and his wife,
still alive but living elsewhere,
shrivels in the dust of sadness.
I must patch, save or throw out
all these stern souvenirs,
begin anew at the end.
Louis Gallo’s most recent poem to appear here was Rosa (July 2011).
Louis, your poem is a triumph of lyrical description that doesn’t get in the way of meaning. Some of my favorite phrases:
“chisels of light pick at the gloom”
“.details of our past like sacred script.
“..lay curled like a shrimp”
“shrivels in the dust of sadness.”
Thank you for this amazing poem.