SISTER HAMLET

Oh, I still remember
your Hamlet
(the best production I ever saw)

you home from school
wrapping yourself in the crimson curtain
of our living room

& stabbing yourself
in the arras
& crying: “ a rat...a rat! ”

& how something or other was rotten
& bringing the curtain down
upon your dying

annoying our mother
critical of your over-heated performance
she sending us(like a bad review)scampering

I will remember
your Shakespeare
to my dying day

your eyes wild
your hair flying
and how

with an entire
cast of you
you acted it out

to my open and gasping
mouth drinking you in
with my thirsty mind

Shakespeare come
startlingly alive me peppered
with beauty & spittle

oh, sister Hamlet
I still live in the wonder
of your telling

I WISH YOU WERE OLD AND WEATHERED

I wish that
you were old
and weathered




that wrinkles
irrigated
your face


that your hair
was a halo of white
that your bones ached


that you complained
with coughs and curses
about your great old age





rather than
Death held you
young & forever



locked
in the center
of his ageless eye



*



This is my sister Junie...the most gentle of souls...she'd stroll into your mind as if she was lifting a latch and walking right in. A fairytale in herself.

Watching the sky turn misty and gray,
my thoughts wandering to worlds away;
Where the indigo sky streaked with sunlight,
sends me back to my years of eternal daylight.

As a child of summer the world was mine,
the ocean swirled with colors divine;
The soft, warm sand touched my soul,
and the seagulls perched on the rocks would call.

Swept into a daydream that filled my heart,
with family and friends who have since departed;
My parents packed sandwiches for us to munch,
and the chocolate bars--how much fun to crunch !

Wading in the foam at the edge of the shore,
was bliss to me right down to the core;
Now dad and mom are shadows and clouds,
and my friends have moved away from town.

But I'll never forget those days of delight,
which ended in a sunset so colorful and bright;
The rain now caresses the old maple tree,
as my daydreams are floating out to the sea.

I want to make love to you one
more time, lying lavishly on those old blue satin sheets.
Silky smooth, like cheeks of angels; dangling our toes off
the end of the bed in sweat
drenched ecstasy.
Just once more, I want to
amble down the grocery store aisles, trying to decide what to make for dinner.
You, looking at the hamburger helper boxes, me, trying to decide between Thai and Italian, the kids, screaming, "Hot dogs, hot dogs."
I can't change time, but baby,
If I could, when the other woman came to me with her
snake dance, I would laugh and turn my back and run home to you.