Old enough to walk to the depot ourselves,
we waved to Ma
and she smiled back from the porch, waving
goodbye! see you in the summer!
take care of your little sister!
in one breath looking smaller, in another out of sight.
Turning the corner I looked back; I saw
Ma wiping her eyes on her sleeve,
coarse twilled cotton comfort
drying my tears also, I almost thought,
but it was just the wind blowing cold tracks
that dried to a salty soreness
from the corners of my eyes to my ears
as I blinked in the bright cold sun.
Brud the oldest lifted Angeline the youngest
wrapped in her new coat a warm brown
cut down from her own
by Ma, for starting school.
It wasn’t easy. On the train
Angeline cried herself a hundred miles,
her tears a spring of misery deep as China
while our own dripped down our throats
to our stomachs, sour puddles
that in briny darkness would never dry.
Later, Angeline slept
lulled by the rumble of the train
dulled by the lullaby of grief
her face hot and thin cheeks shiny
from salty runoff, in her dreams
gasping arrhythmic short intakes of breath
that kept me awake. I looked out the window
at the progression of small towns, a movie run backwards
from our trip home last June,
and when it got too dark to see outside
I stayed turned to the window, watching
that familiar reversal of heart’s order
reel after reel, children ghostly in the glass
in rehearsal it seemed for our destination,
that life backwards from all we knew at home,
Angeline Biik Mitchell and Waboos
sleeping in the glare of the overhead light
a tangle of children smelling home in dreams
as their heads rested on Ma’s cut-down coat,
then my own staring face blank, tearless
smooth as stone, reflected in the window
reversed too in the glass and in my senses
in rehearsal it seemed for our destination,
that life backwards from all we knew at home.
left hand to right daylight to darkness
yes ma’am yes sir raise your head
stand at attention take your beating
remember remember remember