You Were a Girl Then Too

you were a girl then too.

            I carried a red and black stuffed monkey.

                        You slept with cats.

I played vinyl Bee Gees crooning to save me.

            You wore a headband and had a devilish little

                        squint in your October eyes. I wished the wind

would stop ruffling my bangs, all cowlicks. You  
            dared ski slopes. I was afraid I’d be thrown

                        over the handlebars of a purple one-speed

whose front wheel I could hardly control.

            Neither of us was sure where our father

                        or brother were. I lay by a neighborhood pool,

teen skin turning to California brown and

            remembered how we poured lemon juice
                        onto our dishwater hair, braiding it wet to wave.

You took to drumming circles before me, your true faithful

            spirit still at home in the Rockies. My heart in the hills

                        of a West Coast city playing grown-up on a bar stool

slamming back inspiration.

            You still sing powerfully, Bible hymns that hover

                        in grandmotherly shadows. When I sing, my daughter

rolls her eyes thinking me no more than a boastful boy

            with variable and unstable pitch.

                        I still hear the tetherball on its long cord

orbiting the perfect, carefree world of our patio.

            Concrete and arroyo, and a cocoa-colored poodle.

                        We took turns then, at winning.

(for my sister SL)