MEETING W.B. YEATS FOR THE FIRST TIME

curled up in a cuddle
fused into
the one telling the one listening

my big sister
recites Yeats
she whispers:

“Come away o human child...”
as the thunderstorm breaks outside
“...to the waters and the wild...”

as the night breaks open
over the poem
“...to a world more full of weeping...”

the lightning illuminates each line
“...than you will ever understand...”
I cry into her body great heaving sobs

and she says: “Shhh...shhh.. it’s alright! ”
and I only half believe her
her death etched

into my mind
in the coming soon-to-be
future