Archive > Vol. 19 NO 2

Christopher Bursk

Sisters

I understood I could no more call them to me
than I could make my mother let go of my brother’s throat,
or summon my father back from the world
he, like Odysseus, preferred to us,
and yet, on the very nights I vowed not to need anyone
ever again, the sisters returned,

all six with the same silver eyes,
the same long hair the color of steel
that’d been rained on
for weeks, the same stoop to the shoulders
all six looking exactly alike, though I could always tell
each from the other:

the one so hurt she smiles all the time;
the one so happy she looks away
when anyone turns to her; the mute sister;
the sister who speaks for them all;            
the sister with no hope;
the sister with enough hope for them all.

One played with my ear, the way my mother used to,
before she decided to kill me.
One twirled strands of my hair around her finger,
so tight to my scalp she must’ve known
how much I counted on that hurt;
one tested the wings of my back; one rubbed my belly

till every part of me fell obediently asleep
but my eyes. The mute sister kissed my eyelids
closed. The one with hope for all of us sang
and sang the way a brook might
make music with the most ordinary of things — leaf, stick —
and then they’d all join in.

They have sung to me for more years
than I’ve a right to wish for,
sang when my children were out of sorts
or I was washing my father’s darkest secrets
from his buttocks, or opening a letter
that said what I feared it would say,

or when the police seized me
by the ankles on the day that madman ascended the throne
of the world and threatened
to crush it between his thumb and forefinger,
and though, just last night
in my dreams I stirred to their voices as old as water’s

conversation with the stones,
all six sisters singing as one,
even the mute one mouthing with such vibrato
she seemed to be bellowing,
and though I’ve listened to this song
since I grew old enough to feel guilty

for all I had done and could not do,
and though, waking, I’ve tried to pull the verses back
out of the dry, locked places
of my mind, I cannot make any music pulse
in my throat. I’d do almost anything to be able to sing
with my sisters, sing right now their words
                                                to you.