I remember your tousle-haired bright-eyed breathlessness
in the night over the summer.
We were playing some stupid game with our little brothers
to make them happy, and because one of them didn't know how to shut up
You knew just how crazy I was about you.
That night over the summer,
you smiled at me, more shyly
and more accidentally
than a friend.

The last time I saw you
in the dying summer light,
of my house.
Our families watched us,
watched me,
and it ended up (probably,
not on accident), just us two alone
in my basement.
I don't even remember what we talked about
and I bet you don't either.
I remember when you were leaving, and that look in your eyes
("That boy," my dad told me after you had gone, "wanted to hug you.")
and that I was too afraid to even get up to say goodbye,
Because I knew if I got too close to you
I would probably explode
(you, my dear, will have
your work cut out for you).

The truth is, my pretty boy, I am pining.
I am going over all the blond, flirty girls you could be seeing
who aren't me.
I am thinking over that look in your eyes, and listening to our mothers
talk on the phone
about how shy you are, (but not with me)
and the truth is, my pretty-eyed golden-curled boy, I adore you
and I am thinking that the next time I see you
I'm probably just going
To kiss that half-scared look out of your eyes,
because, my pretty boy,
I am sixteen beautiful years old,
And in December you will be too,
And we sure aren't getting
any younger.

"You know, what the most annoying thing is?"
Stacking box, after box, after box
in her empty-floored home.
"What?"
"Knowing how," stack, "lost," stack, "I'll be."
She drops to a box, face in hands. "******* it."
What do you say
To the widow of an adulterer,
To the crier of sorrows
you've never known?
"I'm sorry."
"******* it, you're sorry. Everyone's sorry."
What do you say to all the bitterness
of a woman stacking, stacking, stacking
The boxes of her new life?
I sit on the divan by the window. "What do you want
me to say?" I ask.
Naive.
"****, I don't know." Sighing. "Say you know
He really loved me
And that even though I'm just your pain-in-the-***
broken-hearted
and stupid older sister,
who's made too many mistakes to count,
and who's never ever been there when you need her
because she's too busy with her
piece-of-****
******* accident
of a husband,
you really love me too."
Looking up at me
with tear-swimming
mascara-ringed green eyes
under a black fringe
of artistic bangs.
"Of course I really love you." The automaton of my voice.
"You're my only sister."
Tears falling onto
white velvet wrists.
"I really miss him.
That *******."

If only
he hadn't been
the adulterer

With me.

there's a pimple on my left cheekbone
and one of my brows is plucked
a little thinner than the other.
the only makeup on my face
is the black on my eyelashes
my eyes
burst
green.
my mouth (my rosebud mouth, my mother
smiles) like a slightly opened
slightly troubled
bow.
my brow is furrowed
my eyes are searching
one of my ring-and-bracelet hands
holds back my hair  (short)
and my elbow
rests.
i look at myself,
head-tilting, quick-sketching
the curves of my features
in a single line of ultra-fine Sharpie.

what you see is what you get.

my eyes frown into themselves
through the mirror.
i am long
i am lanky
i am lovely.
i am a little lost
and very found
i am angsty
i am achey
i am laughing
i am me -
if you only look at yourself for a second
you tend to miss
how beautiful you are.
it isn't my vanity.
it's the universal, and most unbelieved
truth.

i brush back my hair
and i puff my cheeks out.
i sigh, and i look at myself
in the cheap mirrors set out
on the art-room tables.
"not bad," i say to the single line of ultra-fine Sharpie-version of my face.
and it isn't.
even though
i left out the pimple.

"bring another bottle," you tell me, leaning
against the bricks
hunched
in the rain -
your eyes, they glitter, out
your coattails are long, lavish, and filthy
and your hat
is pulled low

i can see the care in you
from time to time
i feel it.
"you ain't gonna leave me, nance?" you say,
and i hear the fear
the uncertainty,
and then i go to you.

filthy london, it's brought you down
and me down
with you.
the little boys, the old man, they have questions in their eyes
when they see me let you, lead me, away,
but they don't see
that under the grime of your crimes
and the filth of your sins,
there is a heart, black, patched, and wounded
but beating.
for this i love you.

your hands on me, my man
can be a thing frightening
a thing thrilling
when you beat me like a dog
when you kiss me like a lover.

your violence, my man, is a curse
because you would have better for me
if you could give it.
and your bitterness, my man, is deserved
for the low-life life
you've been given.

and i feel you,
how you whisper in the nighttime, "nance."
and i quiver, just to hear it
"nancy," you whisper, gruffly, after the alcohol's worn off, the ***.
"i didn't mean none of it, nance. not a thing of it, eh?"
you whisper, roughly, bowing your head to my shoulder.
"you're a good girl
for not leavin' me, then.
and i ain't never deserved you
a day in my life."
and i pretend to sleep
to hear it.

you'll be the death of me, my man.
they tell me so,
and i know it's so.
but first
i will be the life of you.

drop me a line and i'll follow you
down
to the depths
of my soul

lead me away and i'll go with you
if you promise
we won't talk
anymore.

he knew how to walk, with the most delicate balance
200 feet in the air
His delicate pointed feet padded onto the rope
his narrow hips
and strong skinny-muscle arms
were like a song
he had red red lips
and black black hair that curled around his ears
and he wore in his eyes a sparkle

and she knew how to walk, with the proudest swing of her arm
through a pit of lions
And with a point-toed bow
how to make them lie down, gentle as kittens
She knew how to sweep her arm up, and make their knees bend
and their red mouths yawn at her, sweet as kisses
she knew how to cast me secret-eyed smiles with her lovely curling mouth,
look what they think i can do
but i knew
that they were seeing the magic in her
that i did

i remember the great proud elephants,
and the wise rap-tapping monkeys
the tigers prowling and proud in their cages, so sad
i remember the lions, and how they would roar and roar
until she came around, and then, like anything, they would purr

i remember the ringmaster in his coattails,
sweeping his cane and tipping his hat, shouting,
"LADIES!"
crash
"AND!"
crash
"GENTLEMEN!"
crash crash crash, a fabulous,
intoxicating,
crescendo

i remember me
with my hat lowered, and my eyes glittering out from under it
my lips curled and coy
and my feet,
planted lightly,
as if to dance.
With a sweep of my hand I would make magic for them.
A rabbit
A scarf
A beautiful woman disappearing behind the snap of a lavish red cloth
leaving the audience
gasping
and gaping.

once, someone asked me how i did it
i told them
think of the tight-rope-walker
the lion-tamer
think of the ringmaster
magic is people, i said
and people
perform.

in the purple-blue, and star-glittering night
yellow swirls shot across the sky
and the black tip-topping trees, swayed.

i learned, standing
in the sweeping grass of that bruise-colored
gem-bright night
of dreams.

i dreamed
of rain, and of blue wind
of soft meadows, and of driving sieges
of oceans rolling over yellow sunset-dappled beaches
and of birds, wheeling.

in the falling sparkling yellow, of that purple-blue night
i spread out my arms, tilted up my face
and twirled in the whispering waist-high grass
twirled
until the stars were golden halos over me
and the purple-blood sky was reeling
and the grass rushed up to meet my back
and i laid there, breathing, and i laughed.