My sister, Poetry
Such a drag, always hungry, yet so hard to feed, wakeful, sick, hating the weather, the air, you always said, so vile, so vile, my hair turned white pandering to your whims, I grew weak-kneed lugging you around, a dead weight to bear. My skin yellowed with your aches and pains, and so, what was I to do then, born as they say, to be one of your own? It got so bad, I hardly knew when I took to biting chewing gnawing at you while you thrashed about, sucking and licking your juices as you ranted, till I got you trimmed to a finger-size, so tiny I could just tuck you like a pencil behind my ear, or fold you flat, stamp-size square in my wallet—or a lump I could hide behind my teeth, then your salt-sweet bitterness stung my tongue to the taste of its memories—and you melted, melted and drained down my throat, so that now I hardly feel your weight, I can’t tell anymore whose voice breaks through my speech, or how I gained the adder’s forked tongue to command sorcery from the bright side and the dark of the moon. Listen,
that song out there, that’s you and I, wanting the sun forever gold on the skin, calling back rivers to where they first sprung, craving mangoes past their seasons, avid as ever for this vile, vile air through you complain that it steals your beauty and corrupts my truth with questions. Well then, my irascible queen, enough of this petulance. So long as this singing last, so long shall we thrive, you and I,
beautiful forever, and deathless…
Aida Santos, 3 July 2020
