Sister,

your tone that day

was shrill throaty silence

a death cry 

an ur-wail

a black shawl 

riding on waves

lochs and lochs away.

 

Sister,

your words

were unfamiliar

an ancient titanic,

a dire sunk thudding

a dank hull echo

in the distant trench of me.

​

​

I swam

half-dressed

up the hill

​

where I stood

 

a moment

​

an ice-age.

​

​

​

Sister,

your voice was exile,

a dungeon and an afterthought 

a scratch in the obsidian cold

that sieged the dam

that gouged the eye of air 

like Himalaya reaching emptiness,

before I could outrun the capillary chill 

the grasping frozen root.

​

I wanted to dive,

dive back to you

into the rocky pores

​

where the water was eaten

a prisoner

until

​

another time.

 

What a delightful spring day

 

and the all

 

of empty.