Dogwood
Lakeshore Drive, North Little Rock, Arkansas
Galveston Easter Sunset
Zoe & Edie on Galveston Island beach :: Just before sunset :: Easter
1977
Flowering Quince – North Little Rock, Arkansas – March 2008
to my sister
A gust hushed red at your cheeks;
Round brown eyes & red hooded jacket,
The bond between frost-sheathed mittens
That connected our hands
Even though we let go,
Our feet in red woolen socks
Tucked-in empty bread bags
Which Mother fastened to our legs
With green Gazette rubber bands
And tall, black rubber boots.
Your breath hanging ’round in the air
Like ghosts that snuck from you
between our faces
Climbing an ice-white rise
For the simple rush down
On cookie-tin sleds again
& again.
I butchered your hair;
Taped your eyes shut,
& burned a dollhouse roof
With a magnifying glass
and worse.
Do you and I agree?
Are our recollections enough, the same
That some geometry living in them
Presupposes memory,
Illumines patterns in static?
I don’t know.
I don’t know
If we are changed by remaining still,
Or hold on as long as we are able,
That we know what we know &
That we remember
Anything at all.
And you may yet have stories
More true than I can tell.
I hope you do.
So if you imagine a quiet hillside
Frozen beneath slick, bending trees,
Gravity enfolding us,
The curved moon &
Dome of fresh gray sky;
If you suspect these
of tiptoeing away -
Sister, ask what I remember.