SITTING WITH MY SISTER

 

When I received the news today of your

passing -- a fact somehow known

before I touched the phone to listen --

I wanted only to keep it to myself,

to not speak to anyone during those

long, slow minutes, their silence

demanding only more silence,

their time more time. I wanted to hold

you there, secretly, perhaps selfishly,

between that cave of heart and ribcage,

to hold you suspended like a single breath,

or a seed that I was neither able to

swallow nor spit out. I wanted

to hold that moment, hovering like

a thought unformed, not simply

for the sake of sparing others but to sit

with you one last time, as we had

near the end in your tiny apartment,

too quiet for you, and those drugstore

Christmas lights blinking on and off

against the smoky California sun.

I wanted merely to sit with you once more,

just us, before picking up the phone,

handing you back to the world of

the living, the realm you had so recently

left behind, weightless and wordless

now, suddenly beyond the endless

aches and ailments of matter, your absence

only beginning to make itself known.