Hilary Melton

I Inherit Two Shoe Boxes

Under cardboard lids: my mother’s
childhood. Here, sepia tinged pigtails
and pinafores pose next to wheelbarrow,
or birthday cake, or freshly caught bass.
Men in suits, round women wearing
scarves. Just off the boat Lithuanian
relatives stand shoulder to shoulder:
an anniversary, a wedding, a funeral.
In one photo, there is a row of men
cradling rifles. In the foreground: two
children—my mother and her brother.
He is lanky with tousled hair, bare feet
and overalls; she is wearing a short
white dress. Both of them are standing
at attention—like prisoners of war.
I recognize those children; we are,
in a way, siblings in the same house.
Though they never had the strength
to remember. Certainly not the cuttlefish.
Those nocturnal hunters: carnivorous
cephalopods eating prey behind clouds
of brown ink shot from rectal glands.
Alive, my mother drew a line “Nothing
past here, ever happened.” I stack photos
back into boxes, tape down the covers,
feel the space between us as big as
a room full of heavy breathing.




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Hilary Melton received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in the New York Quarterly, Ellipsis, Rattle, Slipstream, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, among others.