A COMMON WOMB: SISTERS

~To Lee

So different now, like branches

spreading out

in opposite directions, groping

for the sky and yet

our blood flows from a single

tree, our roots

are anchored in the same

uncertain soil; what nourishment

there is feeds both of us

or neither, and if the weight of snow

should bend you, sister, till you feel the strain

too much to bear the pain

is mine as well, to wear, and if I break

in storm the wind will hurl

your anguished cry to where

I fall, we are as one, or we are

not at all.

Sister, in your heart there beats

a rhythm I have known, your eyes

in fluid darkness saw, like mine,

the walls of our conception tomb

and not the graceless passages

of time, not death itself can fell

the bonds of secrets shared within

a common womb.

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