Topher Shields - Toolbox: Inherited Instruments

“Toolbox: Inherited Instruments” is a six-sequence poem of raw ancestral sacredness wielded by Aotearoa (New Zealand) poet Topher Shields. Topher told The Dewdrop, “‘Toolbox: Inherited Instruments’ is a liturgical sequence of six poetic fragments, each centered on a symbolic tool inherited through matrilineal memory.” He continued, “The poem re-imagines domestic instruments. The blade, match, chisel, apron, level and ash. Each sites of sacred resistance and ancestral voice.” Topher concluded, “Drawing inspiration from Audre Lorde, it explores how silence, legacy, and ritual become the raw materials of queer survival and spiritual reclamation.”

Toolbox: Inherited Instruments
(after Lorde.)

“I am deliberate
and afraid
of nothing”
Audre Lorde, “New Year’s Day”

I left the toolbox open.
Lock broken—
rust blessed,
a hinge singing
of unclosed wounds.

Let the altar blaze.
I build
with tools no master named.

My hands oiled
in my Scottish father’s silence.
It didn’t protect me.

i. The Blade

Every poem:
a scalpel
wrapped in
Grandmother’s silk.

ii. The Match

Strike anywhere.
Even a wet tongue
sparks wildfire.
Grandmothers’ breath
fans the flame.

iii. The Chisel

Acts 8:9–25
Simon offered coin
for spirit.
I break
what he bought
with an unbreaking
hammer.

Nona stares back—
I chisel, she remembers,
carving truth’s unknown
edge.

iv. The Apron

A fistful of gone—
a fishbone flute.
I play
what memory
refuses to hold.
Mormor turns around.

v. The Level

This bubble will never centre.

Good.
Defiant.

Unused tools
become gravestones.
Farmor veiled in black.

vi. The Ash

After the blaze,
after the unbreaking,
after the veils—

I sweep with
bare hands.
Every splinter felt.
What is left
is ours.

No master’s name.

Let us
begin again,
with hands
still raw from ash.

Topher Shields

Topher Shields is a queer poet from Aotearoa. His work explores sacred memory, mythic resistance, and the tools we inherit through silence and survival. He is currently completing a poetic cycle on queer lineage, theology, and ritual reclamation.