Poetry

Legacy

by Darsana Mohan

A two hundred year old earthen pot
sits in a corner of my parents’ living room.
My mother remembers it as belonging to her great grandmother
and thinks it used to hold salt.
She hasn’t thought about it  in years
It exists because it doesn’t need to be moved.
My ancestral home has no space for relics that are not ruins.
The only furniture that outlives the past
is one that could not tie itself to significance.
A false whisper sneaks across generations
to say
a legacy needs a face,
the neck holding it up seldom hears praise.
The feet are not to be examined.
We exist in two centuries of damage
and this pot has only a layer of dust.

Appeared in Issue Spring '21