The lady came and stayed with us.
In the back room by the garage.
My father brought her home
with his black bag
and said she needed
a place to live for a while.
My mother fixed up a bed for her.
I was big, three, and the baby
small and needing lots of Mother.
The lady and I made a scrapbook
with pictures of pretty colored birds.
While she napped in her chair
I played near her quietly
knowing that when she woke
she’d read me stories in that
warm cocoa voice of hers. Then
she’d nap again. My father told me—
I was almost four—
that she needed to go away
where she could be taken care of.
She was very ill. And then
was gone. All that remained—
the scrapbook we made
though that disappeared.
And, when I think of her
something else, soft,
like a feather in the air.
