Too young to hold or bless my mother's hands
as she wept into them, sitting next to my brother
as they both shook with grief. I moved like a breeze
through the forest of strangers crowding our house,
the place we moved to before cancer moved into my father.
That house my mother's shout, each room her echo,
fern wallpaper in the dining room, gingham
in my sister's room, the banister she polished back
to brightness. I fled from her silhouette that night
to the top of the house, to my mother’s studio,
her easel square in the middle of the room,
anchor to the ship of her ambition.
She wouldn't sail again for years.