This poem was first published in Medusa's Kitchen

In the early 1970s, we lived in the old servant's quarters on the 3rd floor of a house in Western Philadelphia. The wooden floors were an endless source of splinters for my young feet. A worn but much loved stuffed "Buzzy Bee" helped me through many tearful extractions with tweezers.

Later soaking in the claw foot bathtub, I'd sing, "Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on, could it be a faded rose from days gone by?" My Dad was a grad student at Penn and would sometimes bring me to the campus. "Joy to the fishes in the Deep Blue Sea, Joy to You and Me," blasted from a radio as we walked past the koi pond. Mom was a secretary in the Psychology Department and I brought my toy typewriter so I could be a secretary too.

The landlady, Claire, and her husband Joe lived on the first floor of the house. They seemed wealthy since they had British accents, dark blue carpet, and a glass chandelier. My parents worried about losing their inexpensive rental, so despite my protests, I was left in daycare with Claire. She had us nap in the rooms of renters, on top of their made beds, without permission.

Claire favored a few children and I was not one of them. Mom packed lunches for me, including little gifts. Claire seized the toys, giving them away, and said, "You're a spoiled brat." She bought an above ground pool, and made the daycare children buy in to use it. We were too poor so I watched the other kids swim. One day in school, I made a beautiful watercolor print. When I told her I made it, Claire accused me of lying. She said, "Art is never created; only copied from others." I never painted again.

Annual visits to my grandparents in Oak Ridge, Tennessee seemed almost imagined once back up North. My dad's parents still owned an original Manhattan Project issued house. But secretly, I preferred my mom's parents, who lived a Cadillacs, fur coats, and country club lifestyle. Their backyard featured banana trees, Spanish moss, Kudzu, and best of all, a pool. Nana Roddie and Grandpa Tom would recline in chaise lounges, drinking cocktails and chain-smoking Marlboros. I practiced with Tab soda and candy cigarettes.

Their house was pure Brady Bunch, complete with fake wax fruit decorations. The wall-to-wall carpeted bathroom had luxurious shag even on the toilet lid. Tiny guest soaps were scented lavender. Nana Roddie wore her light blonde hair up in a beehive. She shampooed with beer and egg yolks to make it shinier. Nana lavished me with attention and gifts, including my favorite Disney pillowcase. When we shopped, everyone knew her by name and I felt I was with a celebrity. She was so bubbly and popular — everything I wanted to be.

One year a tumor was found in her breast. Doctors said the aggressive cancer had already spread. At thirteen, I talked about mastectomies, lymph nodes, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments. Grandpa Tom gave her marijuana to relieve the vomiting. She now wore a prosthesis breast in her bathing suit and blond wigs. Rows of empty liquor bottles were lining up near the garbage. Others were displayed as decorations throughout the house. I was the last to realize she was an alcoholic, and soon she died.