BIG SISTER

you were older than me
now I am older
than you

can ever be
(forever 18 &
forever dead) .

I felt so guilty
when I passed
that age

wishing
I could exchange
some of the life I had

so that you could
experience
the life you never knew

I used to talk to
your grave
as if it were you...

always
beginning:
“Hiya, kid...”

now I find you
everywhere
instead

the sunlight
on the garden
smiles like you did

the ladybird
stumbling
over the furrows of my fingerprint

has the same graceful
awkwardness
your body lent to every movement

you are younger
than me
& will always be

and I am older
than you
...will ever know


* * * * * *


The sound of my sister's voice.  We lived in a house not made of books.  The only  texts existed in the texture of the telling...my sister finecombing my hair and soothing the pain with...shussh...stories.

'The little toy soldier is covered with dust...'

...exists only in my mind and the vague trellised traces of Junie's voice.  It is here breath against my skin as I fall asleep. It has never entered my mind through print yet it is printed irredeemably...indelibly in my mind.

'What is it again? '

I am following my father...gogging my Dad doggedly for the words of a song.  I scrawl the words across the page of my mind as exasperated his patience explodes:

'As down the ****** glen one ****** Easter morn...how many times do I have to tell you! '

My sister Moira is slightly tipsy.  I glow with pleasure as the pattern unfolds.  When she is more that slightly tipsy she will softly and sadly sing.

'I know my love by his way of walking and I know my love by his way of talking and I know my love by his eyes so blue and if my love left me what would I do...? '

I am drunk with her words.  There is a slight smell of loneliness off her breath.  I hang   on   her   every    breath.

I have had four teeth pulled and my world fevers and frets. The smell of sausages sidles up the stairs and seduces me to the top of the stairs.  When I am safely ion danger the smelly magic no longer supports me.  I fall and float down the stairs.  Junie comforts  and croons.  I am lying in her arms in her bed.  Again she sings.  'Again! ' I plead.  She sings again.

'Black is the colour of my true love's hair...her lips are like...'

Her body vibrates with sound and the words echo through me and echo through the memory of me.  For a long long time
the only way these words were written down ws in the breath entering and leaving her body.

When I remember to write...

I write to remember I write to forget.

I write to recover what has never left me but exists in a someplace of my mind.  I write to find out who I am and if I ever was. I write to discover where I went when the wordl went away.

As the bus crashes the book is torn and burning.  The world dies.  A child cries.  I WRITE TO REMEMBER I WRITE TO FORGET.  The book leies strewn across the motorway.  It's spine is broken and its leaves flutter away in dismay.  The book is burning.  It is unreadable as it reads itself to the night's wind. It is an image torn from a dream that is really real.  Its spine is broken and pages turn themselves over and over in the night.

I write...to remember...I write...to forget.

Sunlight streams through the bedroom window...sculpts a sister.  Creates Junie.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Every time I cry.  She says she will not tell me again because it always me makes me cry.  I promise not to cry if she promises to tell me again.  She tells me again.  I cry  every time.  She is not dead.  She is telling me the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.  She is created of sunlight.  Dust motes dance in attendance.  It can not be...more real than this. I write to remember...I write...to forget.  I write to recover the times of her not dying...when she is sunlight and breath.  When she was my book.  When the sound of her was all...around me.  Writing to remember...I forget so much.  I write because I am - lost.  I write to find an exit door in my mind.  The book is broken.  The book is burning.  Pages...fiery pages flutter like lost souls escaping into the darkness.  I write to reach the light.  I write to enter the darkness.  I write to escape the sound of the book burning. I write to forget...I...write to...not forget.                             Remember.

* * * * *

FALLING ASLEEP WITH MY BIG SISTER - TANKA
  
  5 half-moons rising
on the hand that strokes my hair
bracelets like music
whispering softly in my ear
“Shhhshhh...therethere...shush... shush...there! ”