Dear (sister)

You came to me in a nightmare once, had wrecked your car, had climbed into another’s skin-easier than sewing up your old body.

In Davie, you leave your tattered sweaters, you leave your surfeit skin,you leave your initials carved into the rib cage ladder of the water tower to rust.

Dear sister,The currents after your rip tide still persist.

I took up embroidery to sew our Jack and Jill back togetherthe way it was when I’d hide under your desk,listen to mom read to you in bed when I was supposed to be asleep.

Sometimes I lie in my sunken canoe, wait for you to hold my hand the way you did the first time you fed me raw night in a glass, taught me to bleed cabernet,see the world crystalline.

In my fatigue, you bring me to the turnpike so we can sacrifice our inhibition to the stars and play roadkill for a night.

Dear sister

Sometimes I sleep in your room on the sofa, next to the coffee molding over in the travel mug,inhaling what life you left behind.

Last night

I read a poem that made me cry this summer and felt nothing. Sister, did you know that in Spain, fallen orange blossoms are used to make tea?surely,then,when we were separated, we were reborn before we hit the ground.