Second Prize: Ruth Roberts Owen

Inheritance



Old cotton quilt
washed and washed into soft white softness
some facings worn to
feathery edges
but the tiny stitches are still intact
the pods of quilting
holding whispers of warmth like little ghosts
fractals of the original host
all shifting in the wind and sunlight.

I press my face into it
and inhale another mother’s story
warm breast milk
and the honey-sweet smell of newborn-baby shit
the iron tang
of menstrual blood that dries to the colour of ancient ink…

But then the star-splash of the faster, redder flow
more recent and
more deadly…

and the newly washed blanket
hangs heavy as grief
framed by a cold sky and fading grass

still holding its story
and the woman who told it
has left it

to me.


Ruth Roberts Owen