she doesn't really remember her mother
childhood is composed of color, scent,
and what one has been told.

the fabulous clock that stopped
at the hour of death
and was not rewound.

his horrible red nose.
fourteen, she bathed his wife
and changed the pots;

[vi burnt the photographs
in a jealous rage.]

in the thirty years he lived there
her father never finished the bookshelves in her room.

she had enough change when she left for good in 74.