When We Crack, Let's Do It Together
Tricia Knoll
Weary sister, I found you
in the hand mirror
one May night
after my first kiss.
Fingers to my lips,
my skin in silver
haloed in that looking glass.
My mother, awakened
by the night light,
asked about my evening.
You and I slid my hand down,
pressed lips, no telling.
Touch-and-go buddy,
you never leave me.
I love you for that
brush hair, help me hang
silver bells in my ears,
those fractures
in overhead light
a twirling disco ball
neither needs
to be the fairest,
dancing rainbow arms
sweep to white walls
We are not twins
my craquelere and my purple
is richer, yours more severe
I seek you weaving my gray hair
in unraveled timelines
you share, in again, out again
of focus.
You weather shame,
sadness, blame
hover over sleep
hold my hand
I blow you kisses
on the off chance
you catch my drift at puddles,
you rising brown-eye
pebbles in deep ponds
signals to the sun
of the thus-ness of us,
two together breasted dummies
in storefront windows
cameos in the silver spoon
rearview hindsights
Before our glass cracks --
and it will, like all thin-stemmed
glasses -- put your fingertips
to mine, push up bridge
to slipperiness of silver
Before others drape
us dark and down,
let’s touch
our crown of stars
the oh-so brights we learned
the hard way
to love.
in the hand mirror
one May night
after my first kiss.
Fingers to my lips,
my skin in silver
haloed in that looking glass.
My mother, awakened
by the night light,
asked about my evening.
You and I slid my hand down,
pressed lips, no telling.
Touch-and-go buddy,
you never leave me.
I love you for that
brush hair, help me hang
silver bells in my ears,
those fractures
in overhead light
a twirling disco ball
neither needs
to be the fairest,
dancing rainbow arms
sweep to white walls
We are not twins
my craquelere and my purple
is richer, yours more severe
I seek you weaving my gray hair
in unraveled timelines
you share, in again, out again
of focus.
You weather shame,
sadness, blame
hover over sleep
hold my hand
I blow you kisses
on the off chance
you catch my drift at puddles,
you rising brown-eye
pebbles in deep ponds
signals to the sun
of the thus-ness of us,
two together breasted dummies
in storefront windows
cameos in the silver spoon
rearview hindsights
Before our glass cracks --
and it will, like all thin-stemmed
glasses -- put your fingertips
to mine, push up bridge
to slipperiness of silver
Before others drape
us dark and down,
let’s touch
our crown of stars
the oh-so brights we learned
the hard way
to love.
Listen to Tricia read the poem here:
Working notes
I sense other women know the feeling I worked on here. There's me -- and there's the me others think I'm supposed to be. It's hard to tell sometimes which is which. I searched in this poem for a mirror-image sister, albeit a weary one, in that confusion, perhaps a kind of marriage of the two which would end at the same time in peace, each understanding the other, and the cracks in the mirrors.
About the author
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet. More than 100 of her poems and haiku have appeared in journals and anthologies since she retired from communications work for the City of Portland in 2007. Her first chapbook Urban Wild came out from Finishing Line Press in May 2014. She volunteers as part of the poetry mentorship program with VoiceCatcher (a woman's literary journal out of Portland) and as a Master Gardener. Tricia has spasmodic dysphonia, a voice-disrupting disability, that she thinks makes her sound edgy. Much of her poetry is centered in relationships between humans and the natural world. For more, see www.triciaknoll.com