The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Melanie Houle

INHERITANCE           

All I can know of you rests in my hand,
An emblem of uncertain legacy,
As cryptic as a footprint in the sand.

I have no explanation to demand,
Since no one still alive can answer me.
All I can know of you rests in my hand.

An eighteen-carat rose-gold wedding band
Is all that's left to tell your history,
As cryptic as a footprint in the sand.

Were you a farmer's wife, wed to the land,
A shopkeeper, a lover of the sea?
All I can know of you rests in my hand.

A worn inscription in a foreign hand
Encodes a message meaningless to me,
As cryptic as a footprint in the sand.

Our link, forged in the generations spanned,
is cast in gold that seals its secrecy.
All I can know of you rests in my hand,
As cryptic as a footprint in the sand.





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