Of family and fragility

When your grandmother said
you have your father's ears and your mother's lies,
you snapped shut. You sealed up,
lips glued like a clam.
Because it was true, wasn't it,
that you kept guilty bottles
packed in drawers, wrapped in clammy jumpers.
And that at last you had her stiff skin,
her thick blood.

So I have worried that your heart will block up
and your arms and legs and your face
will go hard
and you will stop, stop
and I will still drop little complaints like
"I missed you today"
into closed-up letters.
And that would be it.

Now, I'm not saying forget.
I do not say blame.
All that I am asking is that you stop clawing your dreams
and burning your cigarettes like stinking candles
and that you sleep smiling
so I can forget what it was like when,
in crawling flats, in tears,
I had seen you, your hair slack like a white flag.

You spoke of ropes and soft lungs
and smoke, smoke, smoke.
You talked of those you knew who jumped from bridges,
slept in tubs of blood.
We burnt till morning
while, cross-legged, the print of your jumper
fumbled over your thighs.

But all I could think is I could have done something
so I could say you shall be good as new.
You shall remind us of the summer children like sparrows
of make-up as toys, of naive hips.
Not these blank daggers.
Not this, loveless.