"Polio."
My mother became paralyzed.
Then the family fell apart like the petals of a
rose I used to blow on once.
My room with organdy curtains and silver
ribbon in the wallpaper, clumps of violets
that through the years never faded like my heart.
I say this only because after polio, we turned around
and never looked back.
So it was the ragged hedges, the kitchen full of strangers.
I had never been beautiful, but now it was really so.