On a day of windy transition, one season to the next,
you spoke of helping your mother close her house,
of the choices you had to make—what to discard, 
what to keep—as if it were your childhood itself
waiting to be plundered. You kept a Persian rug, 
all reds and golds, to walk on every day, 
keeping the past alive under your feet;   
those nested Russian dolls you played with 
as a girl: grandmother, mother, daughter;
four bentwood chairs wrenched now from their table.