—for Lucie

My daughter is almost fourteen. She begged
me to buy a four poster bed so she could hang
pink vines, net drapes. I said no, but she
promised to wash dishes for a week. I call her
down for dinner and think of your father,
who called you down for dinner. Kept calling.
I keep her bedroom door ajar. She slams it.
I am afraid when she plays Rihanna loud.
Soon, she will be older than you. Maybe
then I will stop listening carefully for
the pad of her feet through the ceiling.
She wants to be a special effects makeup
artist when she grows up. In her world,
dead girls are just pretend.