The other sister
I wanted to tell her something important
About the way people feel at times like these,
When poems fail provide only cold comfort
Where even a squeeze of shoulder cannot
Reach deep enough inside her to shake loose
The fragments of pain and self torture.
She was the sister of a famous woman
Never quite able to dust herself free
Of her sister’s reputation,
“You’re `what’s her face’s sister,” or
“you’re sister’s so wonderful, sort of, you know.”
Even her lovers came expecting her sister’s sort,
As if that kind of fame ran in the family
Transfused in the womb from mother to daughter’s
Like a package of specifically designed genes
But this sister was a dark and moody soul,
Her eyes brown, not her sister’s blue
With a scar down one cheek
From a fall as a child,
A scar to which her fingers rose
With each blush
Knowing that it showed that much
More clearly when embarrassed,
Knowing that it made her look
Even less like her sister,
I wanted to tell her
I never mistook the two of them
That I knew which sister was which
And who was home,
That I didn’t need her scar
To alert me to the difference
But I was wrong,
I couldn’t tell the difference,
And that deep down in me
I wanted her sister, too,
What a fool I was.