New class, sixteen,
up-fashioned, lemon-clean.

My mother slapped me with a rug
in my face,
with wet and sloppy shred for dust
- in disgrace.

Apartment cleaning task for me
after school
postponing, rushing friends to meet
- what a fool -
was my insistence.
And her resistance
pulled ugly muscle in her lip,
the one persistent during sleep.

The corridor collapsed with doors,
red dusty carpet then arose
to exit.
She stood on it, just touching satin grays
of private curtains, aiming to erase
the transit
of youth - brutality of life,
when women push the daughters to survive
away, subpar, beyond it.