Gold

after Luisa A. Igloria’s ‘Bequest’

In the folds of my mother’s hair
you’ll find strands of gold knitted
like threads of fine silken chains
having held every bequeathed stone
like a memory that cannot be written
neither forgotten, nor passed over to
but you did just so peace was shared
the one we’d probably never know
from the platoons of words spoken
by generations past. You teach us to
suffer the unseen light that will be cut
from the rocks of every drop of truth
that should not have been uttered, yet
your hair glistens a crown of copper –
fading odour of weakening henna
the same orange on our palms
when intensities are nothing
but washed up hysteria.