Enemy Sickness

Your legacy must be both love and fear.
I know that when you died, you feared for me.
The family curse you carried in your breast
Was not a gift you wanted to pass on.

But fear of it, just like my love for you,
Must linger in my heart, unwelcome guest!
And as I weep for your too early death,
I also can hear rumblings of my own.

Ah, Mother! We are linked like paper dolls,
A line of little cutouts in a row.
I see my clearest memories in my mirror
And feel your anguish bloom beneath my breast.

For this, my love for you is more, not less.
In our misfortune there's a common grace:
For me, in that you must have grieved my burden;
For you, in that you must have mine foreseen.