my matri-lineage

presiding over the dining room
above my mother’s head
is the face of her mother’s mother
flanked on either side
with her mother's mother's parents
and her mother’s mother's mother's parents
five generations of women
with young faces
and dutiful eyes

we have no semblance of great-grandpa
the one who left his two children
to find a new life down the road
never seeing them except in passing
when Great-grandma
(who looks almost wistful from her place
in the middle)
died too young

Grandma’s grandma
(the stern faced woman on the right)
took in the children
raised them knowing
their worth was measured
by the labor of their hands
she didn’t have to take them in
she told them
they could have ended up anywhere
if she had not known her duty
instilled with the heavy hands of her mother
(the woman on the left)

is it any wonder that Grandma
was a difficult woman
bearing four generations worth
of passive aggressiveness
to bear on my mother’s slender shoulders
so that when we went to visit
Grandma’s house
Mama cringed as she loaded us into the car
certain her mother would find
some fault in everything
(from the way we stayed so long
to the way we left so soon)
but knowing her duty