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