June 7, 2012
published in on the cusp's magazine "cycle" Summer 2012
My sister, she sits on her
summer swing, dressed in red,
the wind making her skirts
billow, and all the cotton
seeds drift and scatter. it seems like something more
should be happening, as she
clutches a handful
of faded white daisies, flowers
from her youth.
she stares off at the coming
autumn, as I stare at this photograph
of her. Years ago, she used to photograph
everything, especially the valerians
in their dying reds,
the ancient daisies as they
lost what youth
they had. She’d sit by the foot of the poplars in a
cotton
dress, watching summer
disappear just like the handful
of dusty petals she
held. She would say, no more
are the days of sun and daisies. And no more
were her days of sundresses
and songs. The photographs
she’d taken she burned until all
that remained was a handful
of ashes and aged coals, the
embers left burning red
only in her eyes as she
watched the snow come down like cotton
quilts over the earth, like
down plucked from goslings in their youth.
She longed for something golden
or green, for the youth
of saplings as they stretch
up to the sun, needing more and more
every day. She wanted once again to dance through the cotton
fields as they spread their
seeds. Like a postcard photograph
the poppies would all bloom,
gold and violet and red,
and their pollen would cling
to her hair and her dress, a handful
of summer fairy dust. In the long winter nights she had her hands
full
of old daisy chains and
pressed petals, stripped of youth
by january’s chill. One by one, she pasted them all onto little red
valentines, her fingers
shaking and tired, until she had more
hearts and dead flowers than
she could count. No photograph
could keep them alive, as no
enchantment of the sun could keep the cotton
from blowing away in the wind. While the world was draped in a cold cotton-
white she sat resigned, but
in march was she ever a handful!
when the first green appeared
in the snow, slowly showing through like a photograph
developing, her body
remembered all the wildness and youth
it had lost when the leaves fell
and the flowers wilted. She needed more
of the life she saw growing,
digging through snow and earth until her hands bled red.
Growing with the cotton, changing
with the seasons of youth,
living and dying as inevitably
as a handful of daisies; it’s hard to tell anymore,
but in this photograph, as we
sit on her summer swing, our lips are stained red, red, red.
