Family Ties

I am mad at the red shelf for how tenderly it holds
the finished wood of my grandpa’s gavel because,
really, I am ashamed to hold it, afraid my hands don’t
carry tenderness quite the same, so when I do gather
the sense to stand and face it, my palm unfurled

over the handle like a rain cloud, it’s not lost on me
how I darken its sheen. I take it into my hand, and
it’s now 1959 and I’m in the room: NAACP gathered,
Grandpa pounding the sounding block to call
order—here, big decisions get made; here, activism

happens, ingrained into mallet and memory, and I am
mad again, this time at how little I can see from my clouding
of the room. Getting in my own way is my best trick;
getting in Grandpa’s way is a new trick I try
when I pry the gavel from him, and now it’s 1975

and I’m in his church watching righteousness rain down
from his every word, so I bow low in the back pew and pray
to be less shadow here and more snow—yes, pray that I may
accumulate, not obfuscate; yes, I pray his prayers don’t find me
here, unable to face him, his beautiful words, his heart so set

on justice. So I pick up his gavel once more, and now
we are caught in a SoCal sunset, and time has wrinkled him,
and time has also brought me to be, and this time he doesn’t
lift a gavel, but a grandson, his second one. Does he second-
guess his life’s work, entrusted to this careful boy? Does he notice

the clouds gathering where the sun makes its exit? Do I notice,
as my hand moves for the gavel again, how tenderly he held me,
as if this were inheritance, as if something in me spoke
carefully of a place to rest his soul? Is this why I can’t lift it,
even now, even then? Is this why the curl of my hand around

the stained maple reminds me of a fist, and recoil rips
through my veins? Pop, I want to be brave like you, but
even a taillight can kill these days; these days, the bullets
and bombs you dodged in church have followed us
to schools and streets and theaters and stores and squares,

and it’s like a cloud hangs over the world all the time,
and I am just scared of holding this weight. The world eats me
alive and never knows it. Could I ever have an ounce
of your courage? Could I face myself and all
the prayers you placed in me, raining over

a world awash in chaos? I take this gavel,
and all I am is right here. I’m brave enough
to do that. I’m brave enough to be, for you,
a bridge, perhaps. You were called to be strong
so that I might be your tenderness, but

is this enough? Is this enough? A question I weigh
each time I grasp this gavel, each time I place it back
on the red shelf, each time I pass by with a clouded
heart hoping for release, hoping to get a grip, hoping
to lift you up one day just the way you deserve.

“Grandpa’s Gavel” is from Murmur. Reprinted by permission of Autumn House Press. Copyright © 2024 by Cameron Barnett.

Bring Me a Horse
By Lance Larsen

  Instead of bending spoons with our thoughts, we broke
            popsicle sticks with our fists. We didn’t have beards yet,
                      so we slathered our faces in mayo and shaved
            with butter knives. This was called tasting the world
                      with our skin, and this was called happiness times ten.

  Someday we would need a hefty supply of poison,
            so we peed in a wine bottle and added Tabasco
                      and dirt and dead crickets and let it cook in the sun.
            We blew up anthills to prove we weren’t wimps,
                      stuck pins in our palms to prove we weren’t ghosts.

  We spoke pig latin at lunch and tried
            summoning the dead in our underground fort.
                      This was called speaking in tongues, and this
            was called hocus-pocus for novices. Then Ty’s dad died.
                      At the viewing I touched his hands and thought:

  He has no blood, has no blood, has no blood. . . .
            And that night those of us who still had fathers
                      visited the river, and no matter what we asked,
            it grumbled the same sludgy answer: I’m tired of spiders
                      and flies; bring me a horse, a horse, a big black horse.

  This was called listening to the gods,
            and this was called how to keep our dads
                      alive and cussing. Instead of a horse we found a rusty car
            in a field and popped it out of gear and pushed
                      it over the bank. It splashed, then gurgled and glugged

  its way to the muddy bottom. And the river
            absolved us, rain kissing our heads all the way home.