Inheritance

by Lindsay Stewart

Inheritance                                                                          

*

A mountain lion sounds like                                                        
a woman screaming                                

*

He taught us how to use a gun
when we were ten, the same year
we learned about sex and rape
in the same conversation. We were
sitting, very still, in the backseat
and I was grateful I didn’t have to
look at her while she cried.

*

I don’t remember whether the gun
was supposed to be for men,
or mountain lions, or both.

*

They are mostly solitary, they said,
and their territory stretches for miles
and miles.

*

We practiced with cans first,
with the .22, and then he said
it was time for the shotgun.
I went inside, afraid of the noise,
or the kickback, or both.
Mom nodded, as if she had been
expecting me. We watched my sister
shoot clay pigeons out of the sky
the sound echoing through the canyon.

*

The expert says,
If you are a woman thinking
about buying a gun, you should
first ask yourself if you are prepared
to kill someone with it.

Mom says,

If you don’t have a man nearby
you should have a gun. If you don’t
want a gun, you should get
the biggest dog you can find.
If you don’t have a dog,
you should be prepared
to fight like one.

*

Little bulls,

my dad writes to us later,

your horoscope for today says,

Render the fear at least semi-irrelevant.

*

In another world, a mountain lion
saves me from a man.

In their world, men imagine themselves
saving me.

In my world, it is May: our birthday.
I buy myself a knife.

---

Poet Lindsay Stewart is from Glen Ellen, California. Her work has been featured most recently in Southern Humanities Review, Salt Hill Journal, and Poetry International. Her debut chapbook, house(hold), was published in 2022. More of her work can be found on her website http://lindsaystewart.weebly.com.

Artist JC Alfier’s (they/them) most recent book of poetry, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include Faultline, New York Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, River Styx, Southern Poetry Review and Vassar Review. They are also an artist doing collage and double-exposure work after the style of Toshiko Okanoue, Francesca Woodman, and especially Katrien De Blauwer.