The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 1/3/09

[BlueIris]

"The Elder Sister"

When I look at my elder sister now
I think how she had to go first, down through the
birth canal, to force her way
head-first through the tiny channel,
the pressure of Mother's muscles on her brain,
the tight walls scraping her skin.
Her face is still narrow from it, the long
hollow cheeks of a Crusader on a tomb,
and her inky eyes have the look of someone who has
been in prison a long time and
knows they can send her back. I look at her
body and think how her breasts were the first to
rise, slowly, like swans on a pond.
By the time mine came along, they were just
two more birds on the flock, and when the hair
rose on the white mound of her flesh, like
threads of water out of the ground, it was the
first time, but when mine came
they new about it. I used to think
only in terms of her harshness, sitting and
pissing on me in bed, but now I
see I had her before me always
like a shield. I look at her wrinkles, her clenched
jaws, her frown-lines—I see they are
the dents on my shield, the blows that did not reach me.
She protected me, not as a mother
protects a child, with love, but as
a hostage protects the one who makes her
escape as I made my escape, with my sister's
body held in front of me.

—Sharon Olds

[BlueIris]

1. Kick.

[BlueIris]

2. The Lounge must not be in a poetry mood this week.

On the one hand, fine. On the other:

:cry:

[Xipe Totec]

3. This is a keeper!

My son's girlfriend is having issues with her younger sister.

This will help them; I'll forward it on.

Thanks!

[BlueIris]

4. Awwww.

Thanks, fellow poetry lover. You made my day.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. My dear BlueIris...

I just now suddenly realized I had not seen your thread today...

So I went and found it, and this wonderful poem!

I'm appreciating Sharon Olds a lot...

It's a great poem...

Thank you!

:hug: