Inheritance

Inheritance I am from women whose wombs rained babies, whose breasts hung useless without hungry children's mouths. I am from a grandmother who worked herbal remedies over childhood ailments, wrapped my body in poultices of wild onion, beef tallow and mayapple root and drank with me the foul treebark teas that drew fever and congestion from the body. I am from a mother whose Cherokee cheekbones eluded me, whose womb pushed me into the light of January sun, of smalltown South - the first generation raised outside the hollers of the Blue Ridge. I am a voice blurring dialects of Southern Appalachian and just plain Southern, walking the lines between the mountains and the cities, afraid of the fringe I inhabit, afraid to admit that I come from the spirit of a hundred women who inhabit me, who are with me in these cities, in these universities, and who sing beneath my skin, Look away, Look away, Look away. —Lisa Parker 69 ...