What We Call It

The village
has turned into a sleepy suburb.
I look into the woman’s window
and see the living room.
Her body stretches

to reach a glass.
She fills it with warm tea.
Her lips fill a lemon wedge.
She cringes
with joy.

This is the village
where the tiny pig that my grandmother
loved too much was stolen
and her life
was stolen.

In another country
she tried to remember.
She brushed her mother’s silk scarf
across her cheek. She tried
to make her body remember.

She reached into a container of flour
to feel something.