Josephine

josephine, you've grown old
and aged like paper--
all i know is thin skin
and little points for eyes--
a hole in a memory,
imbibing all, spilling it back,
crossing into some new configuration
so that by sundown,
we are now sisters
with new earrings and
matching birthmarks on our hips,
and it is always june.

so we speak in the old tongue--
pretend we are like
mother and Rose, and our
unwelcome chatter rolls
through the company store,
bobbing through isles and into
the ears of dad's young friend--
our language tumbles through
foreign territory and we ruin
our intentions, but

he asks you to the fair.
you swear you could
fall in love with his laugh--
you realize it had to have grown
from the lungs of a boy,
before his hands expanded in the
dark of the mines, and his
need for revelations was reduced
to you and your alabaster smile.


we are now on our way back.
it rains again, washing the gray,
and we are laughing.
home is one light on the hill,
on some street i've never known
and you cannot name,

but we are hopping through footprints
wet and black,
with room enough for two worlds.