I gave away what I could–
books, friends, memories
I no longer believed–until I was sure
I had nothing more to give.
Then one of my children asked me for
an arm, and what could I do
but give it to her? Seeing my generosity,
her brother asked for a leg from the knee down.
At family gatherings, I’d hop over to them,
embrace them both in my arm and whisper
You are my legacy. This lasted all of a year
before my wife asked for my tongue.
She wasn’t blood of my blood, but
our children were flesh of my flesh
in more ways than one, so how could I
deny her? I used to speak my mind,
now all I do is write it in words like these:
Legacy is absence. Never forget that
unless you give away your mind
to someone who needs it more than you.
Then legacy is just another word
like these I give to you with open arm
whether you want them or not,
each syllable merely a footnote
in the voiceless history of me.
                        

My mother’s eyes turned my father to stone
long before I was born. Thank the gods
she never turned them on me except in love.
Well, there were the beatings, but what child
of monster born doesn’t deserve an occasional whack?
Those golden eyes watching from her hair,
eyes that saw what she’d done to my father, 
eyes that knew I knew what she was
and what she could do to me as well.
It’s not paranoia if your mother’s hair watches you
even when you’re both asleep. I seldom slept.
I’d read deep into the night: Bulfinch’s Mythology.
I devoured those stories like a family recipe
handed down from one poisoner to the next.
I grew to hate the heroes–Perseus, Theseus, Heracles–
their hands wet with the blood of mythic beasts.
I was Andromeda and I was the sea monster.
I was the minotaur and I was the golden thread.
I absorbed those tales as desert plants absorb dew.
Full to bursting with odysseys, quests, and prophecies,
I did the only thing I could: I learned to teach.
Sometimes students confuse the names.
Medusa? Didn’t she kill her children?
Not yet, I say and show them my teeth.
Let them think it’s a smile.