A young girl rolls cuffs
above dishwater. A strand
of hair clings to her lip,

froth creeps along her arm.
At the Hot-point
electric stove a woman pulls

open the seal on a milk carton, dumps
grease from skillet to trash.
A boy is still at the table eating.

He mangles peanut butter
sandwiches, dreams
about changing his name

from delivery-boy to A.
J. Foyt and living
on the coast of California. The girl uses

the dark window over the sink
as a mirror, from it she scrutinizes
calloused age in her mother’s hands.

-Written sometime in the 1980s