by Nina

Because it is 8:54 and we are in North Hampton
during winter when the door opens
the rooms winces and she is crying again
folded into the corner
by the bed frame except
there is no bed frame
and her eyes look like crystals
with a freckle on the right side
where I can see the river
because this house walks on stilts
and her body was built on a hill
but it may rain tomorrow and the snow
is waiting on the river because
it is winter and the rocks
cant seem to stop anything
so they are less violent
though she is crying perfectly
she slowed to push her hair from her
eyes cant see the way
she wants them to imagine
without blinking there is plastic on the windows
and the crisp New England air smells less colonial then
I would have expected less real then
I remembered waiting upstairs
I heard the phone ring
in the jar by the mirror
with the scratchesthat read like hieroglyphics
decoding the reflection of the memory and the
seasons spent forgetting
the impression of the river and the
voice that followed her father's questions
when she woke up in the middle of the
night to find that she sighs differently now