Inheritance

My daughter’s hand

is sticky with juice and questions.

She tugs me toward the park tree

like it’s a secret entrance

only children can see clearly.

~

“Higher,” she says,

already halfway to the first branch,

trusting wood and gravity

without doing a risk assessment.

~

I see everything that could go wrong:

the slick patch of bark,

the badly spaced footholds,

the angle of fall my brain calculates

in one tight breath.

~

Those are my roots:

~

A small, careful childhood,

doors not locked against love

but against danger.

Shoes by the door in case of fire,

emergency numbers on the fridge,

a parent’s eyes always counting exits.

~

I was held, constantly.

Packed lunches, extra jumpers,

soft hands checking my forehead

for fevers that never came.

The world was a beautiful thing

you watched from the window

until it proved itself safe.

~

In that soil, you grow

in straight, sensible lines,

learning early how to flinch

at the edge of anything high.

~

Now this small person

looks at me like the tree is ours,

like the sky signed some contract

to keep her intact.

She climbs with the casual faith

of someone who has never been taught

how many ways a day can go wrong.

~

Every instinct I have

tightens into no.

No to the jump,

no to the height,

no to the little scrape

that might never happen.

~

But I remember standing

at my own windowsill,

watching other kids run barefoot,

wanting the bruises as proof

that the world could be touched.

~

So I don’t pull her down.

I stand under her instead,

arms ready, voice steady,

swallowing every warning

until it melts into,

“I’ve got you. Keep going.”

~

She reaches a branch

my younger self would never

have been allowed to try.

“Look at me!” she calls,

face lit with something bigger

than just the height.

~

When she finally jumps,

she falls straight into my arms,

laughing like this is the most

ordinary magic in the world.

~

For a moment I feel it,

deep in the old roots:

love that once tried

to keep me safe by keeping me still

turning slowly into love

that holds just long enough

~

for the branch

to become hers.

.