Generational Filtration

She wasn’t always awful
That makes it so much worse
I remember when she was perfect
An oversized cotton sweatshirt hug
She was a daughter of the sun once
Before she moved her bed to the living room

I will keep the Pixar Clouds
Raffi
The smell of an old book
Lazy afternoons running around the house in pjs

But I will filter the cops
And the courtrooms
The attorney who felt like dad
And the neighbors who glared in disgust
And clutched their children from me
In horror that I might infect their children with my mother’s disease

But will give our neighbor today who brings over homemade sourdough
And has the most beautiful garden in our whole town
Who gave us their old snow blower and firewood
Who does not glare in disgust, but walks across the yard to kick the ball back and forth with Lennox
Good people
I will leave the good people 

For a few years, she was a substitute teacher at my elementary school
And how my heart swelled with pride to see her roaming my halls
Or seated on the sidelines with the other moms
Karate, baton, baseball
Driving boxes of Girl Scout cookies to her friends

But then came the lawsuits
The exorbitant wealth on display
The newly required accountant, doubling as a boyfriend in a crumbling marriage
Axed out car windows after a drunken rampage
The BMW driving us to the country club so they could pick a fight with each other in a public setting
More money, more problems, so the rich people say
When I got sober, my ancestors came together and dubbed me the filter
From which my children and their children would not know such nonsensical chaos
A foundation of presence and knowledge erased by inheritance 
I cast a ball of light and hold it with all my might
From which, only goodness will trickle
And truth surpasses all virtue

Let me keep the Appalachian bluegrass in the background at the fair
Small conversations with passing strangers
Laughing in the pews of the church, we never belonged to
And princess dresses at the doctor’s office

But never to exist in a further reality is the empty chair
At the graduations and weddings and births
The dust you left tickles my nose as I wipe it clean
For myself to sit

So now the blood that trickles down the family tree
Won’t have the gilded flush from yesteryears
Or the acid alcohol scent
But instead, a universally accepted drop
Filtered through this clean cycle