The Laws of Inheritance

You cannot move away from it, all you
inherit.  How in pieces you arrive
seed from the father, stalk from the mother,
and what is it that you take, that you can make
as your own?  Does it all, each nuance,
trace itself backwards belonging to someone else?
The chain link fence of chromosomes trailing
behind until there is nothing you can say is your own,
but for this - the small simple pleasures - 
          	his mouth on yours;
          	his fingers tickling the thinness of your ribs;
          	your eyes marooned in the darkness of his hair;
          	the feel of him in your mouth;
small, simple pleasures.  There is no way out of it,
out of what you have inherited, the pieces you take.

© Heather Simeney MacLeod