Academy of American Poets
View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
Want more poems?
Subscribe to our
Poem-A-Day emails.
FURTHER READING
Related Poems
Inheritance of Waterfalls and Sharks
by Martín Espada
Rhyme of My Inheritance
by Joan Larkin
Sponsor a Poet Page | Add to Notebook | Email to Friend | Print

Inheritance

 
by Daniel Johnson

We drank hard water.
Spoke in plain language.

Said what we didn't

with a joke or a look.
One went missing—

let silence drill its hole.
A second fell ill.

We cloaked our mirrors. 
Slashed a red X

on the door to our house.
Pass over us, I asked

the raven sky,
or burn in me 

a second mouth.






From How To Catch a Falling Knife by Daniel Johnson. Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Johnson. Used by permission of Alice James. All rights reserved.
Larger TypeLarger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2013 by Academy of American Poets.