I'm a legacy. I carry a mantle
                       laid upon me by my mother
                       she dismissively calls, "our shit." 

                       "Our shit" is expansive.
                       Depression on both sides,
                       it is an alcoholic uncle,
                       it is Alzheimer's on both sides,

                       It's a wind-chapped day
                       wrapped in San Francisco fog
                       when I hover, in a hospital room
                       and my grandmother

                       Can't remember my name,
                       peers through moth-bitten
                       mind and Alzheimer's haze
                       to tell me I look fat.

                       Which goes back to my grandmother
                       as a girl named Ruth.
                       Her mother Etta is a fat Russian immigrant
                       who makes Ruth drink cream.

                       A story Ruth tells her daughter
                       Nancy to blame away obsession.
                       Which Nancy tells her daughter Adina
                       to explain "our shit."

                       Which I add to the dusty filing cabinet on my back.

                       My mother and I
                       have the same recurring dream
                       of bloody gums, and teeth falling out
                       one by one.