Vague white powdered walls,
show neither feeling or appeal to emotion
the carpet floor that once gave up a rug burn -
so hot it scraped my knee in two.
Browning roses curled into thorns and thorns into petals
were all switching our roles can’t you tell?
confused , and messing up the order-
were supposed to be neat rows of spoons hung on a wall,
Like staring into someone’s eyes,

while Ms. Cleo tells the future on spoils of silk
from worms , China’s roads of trade.
Puddles of water can tell the secrets of the world when I kneel into them
But I only see myself a resemblance of my grandmother

Feeling myself loosen and settle in my bones, the black crow I followed-
The wide spread root system of a Bladder Cherry
incased in veins ,diamonds the sinews of fly wings

A lemon cake broke in two in my hands,
its warmth burning my palms, bed sheets smelling of spilled sugar from a can.
Between folds and folds creases, a shirt dressed in itself
Pickled plums sour in jars. Organs, muscles and tissues clamped inside
what a body is.

I find myself leaning towards maybe we could try again,
and maybe my Grandmother wouldn’t have had a brain tumor,
or maybe my Aunt wouldn’t be attached to a man, who had five years
- came back, with promises
Instead taking her settlement from an accident that left her leg ripped,
Metal bolts sticking outside her knee the whole summer
she lay day after day in her bed ridden state of solidness

The image of adulthood far from my eye,
the taint of womanhood
became me,
thirteen becoming a woman –
the absurdity of growing breasts on a flat chest
wall reliefs that sprouted,
and the teachings of three generations of woman laid on my tongue ,
a rapture of feelings - moving over the diary of their arms.
But the stubbornness of the Williams name gripped, syrup running out of a maple tree
- I had to find the balance between their memories and living