Villanelle of the Three Daughters

~ after Marlyn Nelson


Three daughters, reading in bed in the early morning
              (this, from the time when there wasn't yet a fourth).
This, from the time before accusations and warnings

about leaving or having abandoned someone. To think
                they shared a quilted coverlet, provenance, and birth.
Three daughters, reading in bed early in the morning.

Since then, she's had a fourth; but thinks she still sucks at parenting
                 despite the many years she's been alive on earth.
Back then, no one accused anyone yet of being 

disloyal, untrue, not enough. From the window at the sink,
               the world looked the size of a stamp. They lived up north.
she and three daughters, reading in bed in the early morning,

From each cord, she kept the dried umblical stump,
          threaded these on a pin; for close bonds, for what it's worth.  
—in these rituals, no one could accuse her of not trying.  

They look at photographs from that old life.
They play together, smile in school costumes—
this from the time when no one has yet accused anyone.
Three daughters, reading in bed in the early morning,