TO MY SISTERS
by B. E. Stock
This is not life but pieces of a life
Spread here and there, and summoned to a phone
In ghostlike form, unless the phone should break.
Not as it was when every day we saw
Familiar faces, heard the living tones
Of one another’s voices, washed the fork and knife
Together, watched a tardy dawn
Burst in the window, made the birthday cake.
I have not even been where you are now,
And cannot picture how you start the car
Or where the laundry is, although you send
Those pictures to my laptop from afar.
I have to come and see you in the end,
But money’s short — I can’t imagine how.
Little we valued in those early years.
We often quarreled over silly things,
Or just ignored the other on our rounds
And great adventures, showing off our rings.
I never thought I’d long to hear the sounds
You made in sleep, and dream of you with tears.
Copyright © 2015 by B. E. Stock.
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