Inheritance Poem by David Watts

Inheritance

My father is made
of dust and intelligence.
He holds the barn together
with road signs:
Grapette, Lucky Strike,
Burma Shave,
rusty foundlings
cobbling slats together
like stitches in a fence.
He preaches Jesus.
He whistles Turkey in the Straw.

Mother is made from music
and culture.She bakes
bread. Opens her tilted uterus
for two sons.
She plays Five Foot Two
on the ukulele.
She is a long way from Laredo.

They made me
out of farming and music,
embryo
with two lines tangled,
hatched like a confounded
chicken
with a tune in its head.

So it happens the barn hums
old melodies,
names, and notes.

And the cotton rows get counted
as beats in a measure,
like Mozart,
while the combine whistles
a shed full of arias.

My father shows me harrow,
windmill, horse trough.
Already he knows my world
is different.

He knows inheritance
is like jumping through smoke.

He listens for what I hear.
The forest hums.
Even the Johnson Grass squeaks
as it grows.