Perfect for Mother's Day: the Baby Be of Use series or The Secret Language of Sleep. - - - - |
Sestina for a Sister.BY LAURA CRONK
was very clean. She must've just washed it. My sister is fastidious. When I watch her I don't even realize she's tidying up, getting every spot on the counter, making the green floor tiles gleam. She rewards herself with a cigarette each time she's really finished something up. Each cigarette vanishes and it's on to something else. This window is spectacular, even for her. I could reach and touch the green fields, all wet and bright. It's absolute perfect crystal. My sister finished this and went on to another spot. This was just a few minutes' work. Her watch ticks loudly on her wrist. It's an antique watch, a gift from her long-gone lover. He gave her a cigarette case too, engraved with birds. He gave it to her at the little spot where they used to go. Well, it's the only spot in town. A café with neon in the window and little tables with candles in the back. My sister has these two gifts from him. And a poem inked in green on a piece of expensive lacy paper. Green ink was an odd choice, I thought. I began to watch her closely after that, after he disappeared and left the poem. My sister held herself together. We sat and each smoked a cigarette after she read it. It was snowing. We sat by the window and smoked, though I don't smoke, and watched the snow fall. One spot of snow stuck to grass and then more and more did, each tiny spot blew down from the sky and gathered with the others whiting out the lawn, green just a few weeks before. She sat at that window every night for a week to watch and see if he would walk up the path, stopping to snub out his cigarette by the mailbox before ringing as usual, asking for my sister. I always get the door. It's a deal we have. My sister gets the phone. I like to see a person if he's going to put me on the spot. She doesn't mind being put on the spot so long and she can finish her cigarette if she's started one. Our old rattly green phone rings and she goes to it without a thought, checking her watch as she answers, newspaper clutched in her hand from wiping down the window. This time the phone is him. Her cigarette falls and her watch hangs heavy on her wrist. The spot where she stands goes dark. I pull the window Shades and go to the porch; my sister stands holding that receiver so cold and such an awful green.
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