I Am I

It was your trademark.  (The necklace, I mean,
not the quote.)  Your sister Katie got it for you.

I saw it before I ever met you, twisted in the leaves
in a gutter in Jefferson County, Georgia where it'd
been left for days.  It caught my eye (this part was
fate), and as I bent over to pick it up, I heard you
 shouting from a distance, yelling Don't you dare
touch it!  as you jumped tree stumps and branches.
You had a bit of a Southern accent then, though you
later tamed it.  The sky and your hair ribbons were
pumpkin orange.

You were only 13 at the time, so I won't hold it
against you that you snatched the necklace from under
my hand or that you pointed your finger at me like a
pistol and told me to reach for the heavens.  When you
 asked me if I was a burglar, I said, Guilty as charged.  
Since this is my first offense, is there any chance
of my getting a lighter sentence?   You pondered it
 for a minute before declaring, Nope.  It's supper with
me and my mamma for you.   Your father was out
delivering sermons door to door.

Our feast consisted of biscuits, barbecue, mashed
potatoes, and sweet tea.  You made me drink the tea
even after I'd refused it
because I was being punished.
I told your mother that the food and your company were
delicious.  She laughed and thought nothing of it.

After dinner, we retired to the drawing room where
Katie was listening to Chopin and painting a young
seabird awakening to the roar of the ocean.  You chirped
condescendingly that you didn't understand a bit of it,
but that everyone said you would once you got older.
I sat down in your father's red recliner.

 Your mother pulled a copy of Ted Hughes' The Hawk in the Rain
from the bookshelf above the fireplace and, for some
reason, began reading from page 21.  You swooned to it,
closing your eyes and rocking back and forth as you held
your knees to your body.  You were sitting on the homemade
rug by the fire poker and you'd never looked prettier.

When she was done reading, your mother pulled me aside
to tell me that she was going to make me part of the family
so I could be your brother.  I wanted so badly to protect
you that I agreed, that I never went home again, that I
dropped my tea cup in my fervor and sent little pieces of
ceramic sprawling like exposed roaches or adulterers.
You later told me (with some guilt) that the tea set was a family
heirloom, but I'd go on to do much worse to the Morgan
name.

When your father got home, we were already asleep in
your straw bed, holding each other as the dying do, my
hands inside your overalls.  He sprinkled us with holy water
to keep our thoughts pure.  Some of it dripped onto your
necklace and it shimmered and shimmered and shimmered
like the sea.

by Zack Rearick

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