I was born into trauma

A brief contemporary poem from E.B. Johnson.

Photo by Ksenia Makagonova on Unsplash

i wear her daily; coiled around me
like a snake. deadlier than
a shade and no less 
as ruthless.

she is my mother’s coat. inherited
in a different time. no less 
stylish than the first
time she wore

it. but that’s how it is. we carry on
in our mothers’ legacies. 
bearing their pain as
silently as our

own. generation after gener…