My Sister's Hand In Mine
Often without knowing how,
I would see you in a rain, in a hammock,
in a window, in yourself,
in a time more here than place,
like when you left the guitar
in the allure of a bus stop,
and pinned a tiny flag
to your dress. You remember.
There was a war on.
Men of a melancholy one could hold.
The past was a souvenir
that could propel us
from one void to another,
until we grew up
like women who sold perfume,
walking around
in their dead aunt's shoes,
who walked on an imagined land.
Our mother grew one dark,
particular rose.
A girl took a white dog walking.
We wanted more clouds, more iced tea,
more laughter that reached
into a pitch, that brimmed over
into intelligence.
Gradually there was a recital.
A certain Mary and Priscilla,
a psychopathic liar and a beautiful klepto,
a self that touches all edges.
It was an old saying torn
from a garden of birdbaths.
As children we were gawky.
What is beautiful? What is ugly?
What is Country? Liberty? Honor?
We returned home alone,
to improvise, on the piano.
The willow trees buried the willow trees.
It was like nothing you remember.
It was like how can you really
know anyone when beauty is as beauty does,
and the voice you thought was yours
seems to fly away behind you
like a ribbon caught in the wind
chasing all that your story
was ever going to be,
while out of sheer pleasure
the streets begin to unfold
into other streets.
Found In Volume 21, No. 03
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