I’ve been trying to understand how my sister can go
for so long without touching the box of matches
in the living room. I used to catch her standing
in the middle of the floor, the curtains aglow,
her hair wreathed in a circle of golden-red light.
She doesn’t know “Avinu,” the Hebrew word for ancestors, runs
in front of me every time I remember her fingertips playing
along burning edges. Family is to be protected, you know, but
she’s been tagged as It since the first day fire made her mouth
gape open.
These memories are like lighting candles for a séance,
or running through a field at midnight,
and sometimes I’m surprised
that my sister isn’t permanently stained with the color
of her desire for flame.
A part of my consciousness is waiting for the too-calm voice
of our mother telling me to “Come home soon, something’s
happened.” For the feeling of the charred edges of her journal, for
the pause I’ll feel just before I blow out her In Memory
Of candle, for the way wax and vellum will linger in the smoke.
But as hard as it is for my sister
to stay away from those matches,
I know she will always find some way
to keep her fingers from stroking the rough strip
of red along the side of the box.
Even though I’m yet to figure
a way out for myself.
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