Jo McDougall: In a Muddy Town

She was my classmate in a muddy town,
an uncle they say for a father,
skinny in a bad dress.
No one noticed
a dream or two lost.
No one knew
when she first came to understand,
in those moored rooms
surrounded by fields of vetch,
that a page had turned,
that her life had dimmed
to the colors of snow
or rabbits or celery.