In Other Words
The car was a frosted red ornament,
Mother rose early to start the engine,
boil kettles, pour warm water on the windows,
ice cracked, and the car burst into hum.
In the backseat, I fogged the glass,
refusing to look at my sisters waving me off.
Alone at the school gates, I pulled my socks up,
smoothed the pleats on my stiff, grey pinafore,
hurried by the wall where big boys loomed.
Nobody told me what I was doing there
or how long I’d have to stay. Nothing made sense:
who to be without my sisters, the alphabet.
I couldn’t say L without M-N-O-P or understand
how separate things might sometimes form a whole,
that letters lived both inside and outside of words.
Nobody told me there were two languages,
or they did, and I didn’t know what language meant.
Suddenly, there were two words for everything—
window & fuinneog, door & doras, Alvy & Ailbhe.
All winter, the first name shook me from sleep,
and in the car, I slipped the new name over my head.
Ruptures
You’re basking outside in the sunshine—
a cup of tea, books, and a tatty pillow.
It’s nice to see some things stay the same,
though you wear your hair differently now,
and your freckles are more apparent.
A tub of peanut butter sits absently to one side.
Last year, I watched you eat it from a spoon
on a video chat, and was reminded of us
sneaking peanut butter from the kitchen
and spooning it straight from the jar.
When you were born, I remember the thrill
of skidding down hospital halls, pushing
through big double doors to get to you.
We threw ourselves across our mother’s stomach,
rupturing something. She stayed calm and pale
as she let us cradle you, taught us how to be gentle.
Sister, I slip your name into conversations,
though I have not told you anything in so long,
you, who once knew everything.
There seems to be no way for us to speak
without all the old hurt showing up,
making us both sound backward and ugly.
I cannot tell you what it means to be gentle,
back then, it was easy, keep still, support the head,
there’s just so much more to it now.
