We slept shorter to so little
Working out ways making it up
To childish ourselves.
It still runs in our unruly family
Not to inflict pain; again,
Sometimes we talked to each other
In rapid sentences but longer silences,
Later —  in letters sent to justify them,
Recalling the yard full of brittle
Wine peonies planted by our mother:
They gushed so much like us.

From now on I summon
My fugitive selves,
All at once to nuance
the stitches and shells.
Should they not be complete,
I will handle it.
In the darkest of nights
There's no way to keep
Unabated light,
But to brace my mean heart,
Tape it shut but somehow
Lose it into the wild.
There it goes:
Beastly wonderful storm
Through the hurdles of challenge;
They blazon them selves — yet another refrain of acceptance.
Spoken truth is an armour of gold,
But my only concern is to hold an opinion of selves,
as they matter.
After stitches are dealt with,
Mostly painfully sheer in their glory,
After shells are assumed
to be me: I'll summon the suit.