My Sister's Eyes

Lorna Crozier
From:   Everything Arrives at the Light. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1995

My sister who never followed me
was awkward, yet a graceful
lovely thing. Armless,
her hands sprouted
from her shoulderblades,
fingers splayed into fins.

Round hard buds
blunted legs that never grew
yet in the salty sea
she flipped
and somersaulted,
eyes wide open
and green as light
inside a leaf.
Even then I knew
I'd forget most things
but not my sister
or the underwater cave
where we swam to sleep.

My fingers, each distinct
and whole, no flap
of skin between,
made trails on the soft
enfolding walls
like those a snail will leave
as it eats its way across
the algae-skin of stone.

Guided by the green
of her amazing eyes
bone by bone I drew
our mother's face
so I would know someone
when I had to leave my sister
and learn with awkward grace
to love the world.

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Lorna Crozier's works copyright © to the author.