if dream

the woman and my father are entangled and come
into my mother's room while she is sleeping, one by one
destroy the contents of her life, erasing their reflection in her mirror.

with her finger, her nail painted, she lifts the streaks of exchange:
everything for nothing: my mother's clothes, her desk, her bed
with my stuffed animals hovering for a short while before
they, too, followed. she would take with her index
the books, the laptop, both pairs of glasses.

i, crying, hard, like the air
pressure before a storm, see

my father's hand on her face.
blindfolded, he does not see
the way things disappear.

i cry because my father is gone,
my mother is asleep, and this
strange woman is taking my babies
away from a younger me.