“Clean” by Jayne Benjulian

A poem by alum Jayne Benjulian (poetry, ’13) appears at Cider Press Review:

What was the word I can’t remember,
what words did I know at nine ?
Plenty with a father like mine. His sister
cornered me. Was it the stone
room, it had a porch door
a stranger could come in, was Mother
alive I can’t remember who slept
upstairs, I turned the knob to the attic
door, it was cold, it was hot, I looked
through the box, I smelled her cashmere clothes,

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