If that is your writing to the left of my answer, you really don't need an awful lot of help. You write very well.
That's the good part.
The poem is difficult. And you are absolutely right about your assertion of childhood contributing to who and what we are, especially for a poet.
So here are the parts I would choose if I were in your shoes.
- House of five fires, you never raised me.
- Those nights when the throat of the furnace
- wheezed and rattled its regular death,
- I wanted your wide door,
The reason I would pick this one is because you are going to have to find out what the house of five fires means. It comes up again later on, but it's here right at the very beginning. What wide door and why did she want it. You likely need to explain why she uses the furnace (which is old and near collapse). What setting is she developing. In this poem everything is important, but she's making a definite reference to her childhood.
- The house I left as a child now seems
- a shell of sobs. Each year I dream it sinister
- and dig in my heels to keep out the intruder
- banging at the back door. My eyes burn
- from cat urine under the basement stairs
If this isn't a guiding memory from childhood, I have no idea what might be. You might argue that this is going to be hard to connect to the first quotation and you might very well be right, but it is at least very clear, and very sad.
Then there's the conclusion
- When desolation comes,
- I’ll hide your ridgepole in my spine
- and melt into crow call, reminding my children
- that spiders near your door
- joined all the reddening blades of grass
- without oil, hasp or uranium.
You might need a little bit of help with all three of them. Get your interpretation from google. When you are sure what someone else is saying digest it and then tie it up with your own words. You do have the skills. Just go for it.
This is a very sad memory she's conveying. She's not had a good childhood would you say? And yet ...
The drama of it must be worth something.