I have thick varicose veins:
tributaries of blood
twisting across the map of my body.
A matrilineal genetic inheritance:
my legs
are my mother’s legs,
my grandmother’s legs.

The topography of my skin
is a blue and purple raised relief
I can trace backwards in time
until it is white and smooth with youth.

I am eleven.

I run bare-legged into Lake Huron
with my seven-year-old sister,
the waves cresting against our thighs.
We know our bodies
only as vehicles of delight—
awake to the spray on our skin, the sun on our faces, the freckles spreading across our knees mapping new constellations.

My mother, her own legs hidden
beneath loose cotton pants,
watches from the shore.

As a child, my mother’s legs don’t even enter my thoughts. I do not think they are unsightly or that they should be deprived of the pleasure of the lake in August: they are just legs.

I love all of her: the soft skin on the
palms of her hands, the way her lips feel
pressed to my forehead,
her gentle touch as she ruffles my hair
and draws me close
wrapping my shivering body,
all knees and elbows,
in a soft, sun-bleached towel.
I love her body
the way my children love mine—
like a softer extension of themselves,
a place of refuge in a world of uncertainty,
always within reach.

Now, my mind a retrospective of my mother at 39, the same age I am now: I see her youth, her eyes aglow, she is beautiful—a Queen—her heart-shaped face rimmed by the fading golden light of summer.

My body is made of my mother; the blood that flows through my veins first flowed through hers. Because I am made of this woman whom I love, I love this body, all of her, too.