Wishes Made on a Forgotten Four Leaf Clover

She delicately picks through tangerine soaked memories

the way little girls helplessly look for four leaf clovers on spring afternoons.

Tiny fingers grasping at an idea more tangible than the thing itself.

She tells herself that one day the periwinkle dresses of her porcelain face dolls

will cease to burn,

and that one day with her delicate fingers she will rearrange the ash like

the pieces of a puzzle into something resembling her own innocence.

Yes,

the dollhouse is crumbling,

and time is unforgiving,

yet somehow her mind keeps returning to her too frail mother and her

too worn shoes collecting sea glass on

empty beaches.