Just like the pictures we seem not alike, like an inability to spell a name exactly.

Every time I think I have you I don’t.

Men are like that, you are like men, distant, remote, inscrutable.

I stumble in front of you, little sister, only girl, your first

and necessary knowledge of a woman beyond our mother,

lost these days and months and almost years.

Today we moved her dining set from one place to another.

The pastors wife said she admired that I would take the time to

polish the furniture in her yard, although I was just removing mold, as 

our mother would do. It was not significant in the way that driving by the 

ocean with my head outside the car is significant, like a dog aching for a run is significant , like the woman selling health food afraid of the hurricane is significant.

I am not afraid of the hurricane itself, although I am like our mother

and wish to be prepared. I wish to be ready for any disaster as I was

taught to be – ready like a blinking light, like an unclogged manhole,

like a wife or daughter or sister from history.

Where do you put me in your pockets of care? I wonder if you learned

to keep those secrets, if I still exist in some holy place outside a pocket,

or if I still sleep behind the altar of our not yet sins.

It is time to buy candles and batteries and light because God is forgiving.

On the highway today, with no recourse but to drive, I saw everything.

Impatience, arrogance, despair. And I saw myself.

I can’t repair this brothers and sisters, our lack of a flat tire in the midst of real sadness.

There’s music in traffic, and frustration and when I find it I will teach you

the tune.