Inheritance

By James Galvin

The trap had been set in the middle of the workshop floor, out where anyone could have seen it wasn’t even baited. It had a musty smell that was cold and irresistible, like an island, a lake, or a rusted steel rose. Setting it was not a question; it was a demand. Behind the chains and sawblades on the north wall of the shop, I found the packrat’s nest, his fetishes:

Some wool from a saddle blanket
This is for horses grazing knee-deep in evening light and prairie grass; for wishing I was on another hill, wishing I was here.

A cactus blossom
When the last snow melts, this is for its falling; for the cracked mud I see behind the shallow blue of the sky. When the red flower closes at dusk, it climbs into my shirt, and opens there like a heart.

A piece of glass
This is for the lover of two women: one who has left, one who waits; for the ice that covers lakes, giving its light to air, its shadows to water.

A squirrel’s paw
This is for the cut, waiting inside the edge of the knife; for losses; for everything given.

A feather
Each fall the raven leaves me his north country, bad weather and promises, his feathers full of summer air, so green it looks black.

Three keys
These are for three wrong answers to every question, three wrong questions to every answer; for three keys here in my hand.

James Galvin

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James Galvin (born 1951) is the author of seven volumes of poetry, a memoir, and a novel. He teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City, Iowa. (Wikipedia)