Poetry
My Sister of the Sea
Marika Ismail
Summer solstice and my sister, that
beast, birthed under the bell-
toll, already taking to treetops
and light, upward-tilted like a fish
pulling pelicans down from the sky.
I stole her baby body from my
mother’s hands, from the high-chair,
the up up up where she perched
cat-like. I crawled into her crib
sick with love, her swollen face
a small thing I could not unclose.
And later, I liked to feel her light hair
unknotting between my fingers until
her eyes welled up and she wept.
I liked to sit in the sun on the shore
with my skinny legs wrapped around her
braiding sunlight and salt into her then
as if I alone could make her shine.