My sister wears a golden necklace—
a delicately engraved coin
strung on a slender chain.

she found it the other day,
lying where she’d dropped it nine years back
in an old box she forgot about
and says she now remembers
a relative from far away
–China perhaps
who knew the meaning of the pendant’s faint inscriptions
and wrote them for us.

but the meaning is lost,
and the soft-gold characters are blurred and faded
like oft-recalled memories.

My sister wears a chain of Chinese gold around her neck.
it leaps curving upwards from her throat
twisting and flickering
reflecting myriad points of light from the winter sun
as we run and laugh,
chasing the wild geese