“A lot like you,” I say.
For once she doesn’t
argue, asks, “Why is it wrong
to cover her brother’s body
with dust?” I search my memory-
school, classroom after dry
classroom, curled corners, frogs
undissected in the lab.
The cursed House of Atreus,
a family that screwed
up bigtime, and that’s paying
for it still. “See sweetie,
once you get the gods mad,
if it takes forever,
they’ll get you.”
I’m reading Creon’s mad bluster
and Haemon’s sweet reason
but seeing her think across the page,
eyes wide. At four she told me,
“I want to be a window, so I can see
everything.” At five she said, “I want
to be bad to know how it feels.”
I almost covered you with dust,
little girl, when you lay, purple-eyed
and drug-smeared, in a near coma.
A million Creons could have come,
a billion, and told me, Leave her there
to die, and I’d have kicked
through clouds of pages,
She is mine, and she is going to live!
She leans against me while I read,
nose and mouth pressed against my shoulder
and hair, absorbing me with the story.
Willful girl, you've tasted death,
you will do the same
when it comes time.