Heritable - Haley Campbell
we can talk about
pain all you want
we can address
my body filled with
pins, or sharp slivers
of glass (picked up
where? The kitchen floor?
Did someone
drop a jar before I moved,
leaving me
a few skittered pieces
on the tile?)
we can talk
about mothers, about
wombs, barriers of blood
however you conceive
the soul, what ferries hurt
from body to body across
generations, electric
arcs searing from brain
to brain
we can talk
about inheritance,
which is to press
responsibility into
another’s body
and expecting other limbs
to bear its weight
Originally published in Hypertrophic Lit, Summer 2018
Haley Campbell is a poet living in Austin, TX with her husband and daughter. They share their home with many unhappy houseplants and a large, opinionated dog. Her work has been published in Barren Magazine and several excellent journals that have since closed, including Hypertrophic Literary, where "Heritable" was printed in the summer of 2018. It was her first published poem.
