99poems/4thqtr/teenie

Around midnight
I had an image
of a cousin
saw her face
as clearly as if
I knew her yesterday.
The one sent to
live with my grandmother
when her mother died
and her father re-married.
later in life she
developed an addiction
to coca-cola,
her face scarred,
as she must have felt
her life was.
I remembered her husbands
name, the names of all
her children.
Even the one who lives
in Albuquerque.

10/9/99