"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.