in the kitchen,
i find my mother in my hands
opening the dishwasher
re-organizing the coffee mugs 
along the edges
of the top shelf
in cognizable lines.

this kind of clean
feels dirty to me
a bastard descendent
of an unwanted lineage:

i keep dusting the floorboards
like a good girl
hoping to become
my father’s daughter
but all I find are
her sunday rituals. 

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