1950
What I remember has texturelike the grainy feel of a black and whitephotograph.
Your eyes are lucid and honestas the blue glass stone in your locket.
We are sitting at a wooden table in the livingroom.
It could be a winter afternoon.
Venetian blindsstripe the floor with sunlight.
Our mother andfather are elsewhere off camera.
You areembroidering in one of those pink plastic frames.
I am cutting construction paper with dull-edgedscissors.
We hear the prick of the needlein the muslin, the cutting of thethe hiss of the radiator-paper,
but the hours‘ passing has its own sound,
its own iron taste in the mouth,
its own deepening light.
The green wallsof the living room darkenlike a forest.
We could betwo lost children farfrom home.
- P16
