My mother keeps her grandmother's walnut

dough-bowl like the Ark upon Ararat,

ancient recipes at times fluttering

from the prow like unclipped ravens and doves.

How much do we just become the people

we admire? Can I find my ancestor's

gesture in the way my mother drinks tea

and slices her cake? What old way have I

that was squeezed into my lungs the day

I was born? Whose lip is this, whose finger,

whose saliva hardens on my pillow?

What Do We Inherit?