Sister
by Anne Treat

In Farmington , New Mexico,
Sun dives under straight plateaus.
I wait in the boxy airport
With big buckled cowboys
And a cleaning lady,
Whose tanned Chicana cheekbones
Wrinkle time.
Her smile, a gift more pure than the Clorox she uses
To scour the bathroom toilets.
The cowboys depart
And then the sun,
Losing bets with Orion,
Leaves for better luck in other skies.
In Farmington, New Mexico,
I wait for my sister.

She never arrives.
The road leading to me,
Too full of obstacles.
Highway apparitions,
And shocks of grace in the form of ghost deer,
Take her with them.
They offer no return.

In absence I pull pictures from my memories,
And try to understand how the ache of these stories means
I still expect her to arrive in a flash of auburn hair and lipstick,
Too dark for her smile.
Night sky cradles stars in deep heaven-pockets and hands them to me
Like the gems of renewable moments.
Having no tools to repair loss, the moments mean everything.
Our passage of time together,
A pulse,
These moments are life.

In them, I feel her dry desert heat, crackling
To fire.
Where juniper trees saw hazard,
I saw hope
For the strength of flames,
The power of passion,
Or to understand how even in absence,
Her crimson magic
Could sing answers through heat,
Showing me what it means to burn bright,
Or how ashes cut darkness,
And endure time.

Anne Treat writes, "As a student at Fairhaven College , I explore ideas of multiculturalism through non-fiction writing. I am particularly interested in the influence of food on history and culture, and its consequent contributions to cultural traditions."