Heirloom Diane Schenker Take Medea’s cloak of fire. Put it on. To everyone’s great horror, wearer burns to a crisp. Take the crisp and crumble mightily with axe and stone, then mix with shavings of mastodon. Leave mixture out in the rain until Time starts being counted, then count: six epochs and an era or two, to taste; then mix in a portion of a lake (the best are too far away to get to easily). Bring to a boil, then simmer, stirring constantly and with abandon; add a nuncle and some foolscap sliced into bite-sized pieces. When soft and indistinguishable, let cool; pour into molds, male and female. When set, remove from molds, being careful to hide any lost limbs; paper over longing that protrudes through the surface. Leave adjacent on plate overnight. The hills and valleys should be fully populated in the morning; gather relations together, grind to a fine powder. Sprinkle over water, let settle, then take the passed-through liquid and spread over the pasture. Graze the sheep there, then shear them and make a cloak; it should be pale in comparison. Do not wash. Try not to sweat. Wipe up food stains immediately. Do not dry clean. Hold the cloak in your mind’s eye, in a storm on the heath, during that bad land purchase, while your mother is in the home, during all avoidance of the problem, then fold carefully, making sure contents do not spill. Put in a Ziploc bag with moth balls. Tell some stories about it and of course some jokes. Say, I want you kids to have this. Diane Schenker was a shy and solitary child. Thinking she would become socially adjusted, she ran away to join the theater. After many adventures and half a century later, she realized she was in fact still a shy and solitary child, and her social maladjustment wasn’t going to change. So she moved to New York City where no one would notice. She now happily puts pen to paper and wanders the woods of upstate Manhattan, keeping track of her avian neighbors. She is the author of a chapbook, Relation/Couch/Dreaming, and her poetry has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, Gargoyle, SalonZine, VIA, and Writers’ Bloc. “Heirloom” appears in our Winter 2012 issue.