I would draw what I know of my grandmother.

The soft smell of a house cleaned and scrubbed
through the labour of her hands
before forgetting,
as if in that smell could be contained
the fast pace of time devouring
life.

The same smell produced
by the hands of my mother and then, by my hands, and my sister’s hands,
larger and lighter
but the same, in the ferocious way of maintaining something,
something, at least,
even when is not us or our feelings
or our memories,
or our histories,
pristine.

Coefficient of relationship, they call it.