I Inherited My Mother’s Nightmares

My memory is just bones-
a clutter of heirlooms
in the kitchen junk drawer
where my mother’s soul 
is hidden in veils of  
tarnished tchotchkes.

This women who 
refused to vanish has 
almost vanished from me,
leaving these relics 
of unclaimed bones,
this flatware she so 
carefully inscribed now 
rubbing out her initials 
in the consuming rust. 

There’s no place setting
left empty for her anymore,
no talk of her anymore.
She has famished away 
in the ritual bread passing 
from child to grandchild,
the rude and louder din.  

Yet, when my nightmares 
become an inescapable labyrinth,  
she’s their with the saving clew,
the one spooled out so many 
times that life became for her 
a simple process of following 
the hidden steps back home-

until I fully understood how 
she must have suffered- 
and how I must light my own age 
with the spill from her distress.