confronts and then dies

Just this poem I wrote.


Today I laid my sister to rest.
She was so tiny and pale, her skin
like ash

But like an uprooted sapling, frozen in the
winter cold, she lies at peace
within her miniature casket.

Only when I had placed the lid so tentatively on it
did the tears form flowing rivulets
beneath my weary eyelids

And forcing them open I saw through the teary blur
and the dancing tongues of flame-


my infant sister. Cleaner in Death than in Life
with cheeks of rose and wide, bright eyes
she stood in front of me and extended a tiny pink hand

Incandescent in the glowing light of a thousand fireflies

I took it.