Birthright

Saturdays, my mother
took me to her mother:

rose patterns on china, dish towels
cross-stitched with days of the week;
a rat-tailed comb, brush curlers,
pink hair-set tape,
and Dippity-Do.

I dusted mopboards,
shook rugs and polished silver
while my mother, stiff with silence,
washed and styled her mother’s hair.

The house smelled of setting gel,
rose water and rage—
ghost tongues weary of their stories.

Decades later, my daughter
learned to polish
my mother’s nails; I buttoned
her blouse, teased her hair.
Each visit bore the tarnish
of never-enough.

Now I live alone by a river.
My daughter seldom calls;
I rarely answer.
Only the salmon return
each autumn, doubling back
to the stream they were born in.

Along the banks, cattails explode
—a thousand furred tongues.