Soft Inheritance
by Liz Howard
All my girls growing up we had hard times
the lattice-structure of our future interiors
sung like a diamond bit drill against our
temple of stripped spruce before we lost
the dream in the softness of bedclothes
our case manager said it’s imperative
that we to tear a false form from a once
peripheral sky and rewild it into lemon
meringue and Marie pleine de grâce blue
along the red cartilage of heaven’s curvature
we refused their munitions their white phosphorus
their dogs their soft liberal launch of sunset doves
even back then when their all-cause mortality
threaded its metals through our gills we wanted
more than a hymn a hypnic lift a faithful marriage
of science and social thought arising from
the spinal fretwork of every goddaughter’s
daughter’s daughter and all once and future
daughters like mine picking blood-fattened
blackflies out of their hair at the kitchen table
as I have been them and are and have yet been
drinking from creeks and back shed downspouts
in a mild winter not to mention imbibing downtown
railyards of crystal snow in a halo of diesel smoke
where we were dwellers without precedence
if we are to be scrutinized by the state
let this be our scrutiny.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Liz Howard is a poet, editor, and educator. Her critically acclaimed works include Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent and Letters in a Bruised Cosmos. Born and raised in Northern Ontario on Treaty 9 territory, she is now an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal. @infinitecitizen on Instagram.