You call from the city of your passing,
the city of our birth, with news
of common souls. Sending gifts
I never dare to open. My hand
me-down sister who lived for only
a month, just enough time to make
a woman. Favoring our mother
the way I wear our father’s genes.
You perch beside her on the piano
bench, your light touch arched
over her emotions. I would not be
honest without confessing jealousy.
Your death holds so much guilt
you must be canonized and porcelain,
your future always flawless. My moon
in Gemini, my changeable moon.
When I was a child, I heard you crying
in the night. Then silence. Our mother
never waking. Now that I have lived
beyond all lost footsteps, I still wake to
the grief of an imagined life.
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