A nervous quiet in the house, no hello
to get a bearing from. My sister at the kitchen table,
staring out the open door. “She’s gone to the garden,”
she says. “She wants to make kasha for supper
tonight.” I hear an adult sadness in her voice.
“You had another argument I guess.”
The stove is out, the kitchen so quiet I hear
the drying spices near the door. Outside, the day feels
tropical for September. Still, such a departure—
it’s not like her to leave any door open.
There’s something like a question in the air.
Now that she’s lost a second son, she hardly speaks,
and I’m too quick to take offence, thinking she’d rather
it was me. Now I’m helpless here. Try to bridge
the widening gap—she’d only think it weak of me.
How do the rest of us deal with him being gone?
My sister up in her room with her illnesses, looking out
her window at the street. And I wear the pads in the family
now. I bring the bruises home, the aches and taunts
that wake me in our moon-bleak room.
She’s gone to my father’s garden,
something else she rarely does, until she has him
flood it for a rink. It’s his still and private shelter more than ever
now. I’ve watched him disappear between the rows, pulling weeds
and winding tendrils onto strings. The days grow shorter
as he tilts his head and sniffs the air for frost.
Right to the last, he’ll tend the cantaloupe and grapes
that haven’t a hope of ripening here. He’ll choose a green tomato
for his eggs. Or stop to see what’s happening at the cucumber frame.
A background man. He’ll stand for such a long long time,
I’ll lose him in the vines until he moves.