I Carry Her Still

My Great-great Grandma Daisy wrote poems. 

I held one, once, before it slipped

through my fingers. She wondered,

if she had to give up any of her six sons, 

which would it be? This was barely

hypothetical back when death danced

between horses’ hooves, 

coiled under cool rocks, 

unfurled in sneezes and spasms and fevers

that reached the summit. She couldn't

give up her oldest, so steady

and dependable, nor any of his little brothers–

jokesters and dreamers. 

I come from the steady and dependable–

the rock who cracked, who killed

a neighbor's pig and languished half a life 

in the state crazy hospital, in the white space 

of family stories. 

But he was there once, stoic

in faded typewriter font, in stanzas 

fanciful for their time, tucked into ink 

by mother's tired hands and passed 

through generations, one callused hand to the next.

My callus rests on my right-hand 

middle finger. No dish-worn split leather here

or thumbnails stained black 

by a hammer’s wayward turn.

Emotion is no pathology in my world. 

My soft hands deposit

papers in crowded file cabinets,

fly off before making labels.

I've mislaid Daisy's yellowing paper,

but I carry her still, and all she held.