My Sister went back home

(For my sister Monica, I call Moe)

She came for a few days

The few days a rush of tangled emotion

Love I grab at greedily, knowing she will

soon be gone

To her real home

Where she is a mother to 3 children and a

wife

Still our childhood stories seep in as if

not a moment elapsed

Like a commercial between a television

show

It was a moment that was crystalized

A deep breath, we couldn't keep but had

to exhale

Into the earth

We stayed up late to guard the time

To keep it, but it ran like a river, rushing

somewhere else

I was unable to keep water in my hands

Our time together is like that

It deepens us, passes through us, burns

the senses

Our visits so brief, a yawn, a sigh, so

quickly absorbed

She never looks older to me, I am the one

who has aged

She is still wiry, her body the stem of a

flower

Her face, I always say beautiful

But she hates me for that

There are very few flaws inside her soul

God has sculpted her, she was born that

way

Or she allowed God to use His chisel on

her bone

To wear away the blemishes

I stay with the thorns, she leaves as she

drives back over the mountains

To her family,

The thorns remind me that there is

physical distance

From the time we were kids to the time we

were young women

And now she is middle-aged and I matured

The wine between our souls continue to

be poured

In the intimate conversations over the

years

I am reminded that she has become more

gracious with time

And I cannot hold anything as well as her

With her slender build, her petite body

rushes off

Into a place I can no longer follow

Into the ocean she runs and I stay on the

seashore

Reminded of the waves briefly stretched

over the shore

a momentary embrace

we passed through each other

and when the water is pulled back into the

ocean

the seashore is left with the diamonds

of our time together

the seashells

I am beyond blessed that she is my sister

She blesses me with seashells from the

deepest part of herself

I learn more about her and am

In awe.

(written July 22, 2018, taken from My Mother Knew and other poems by Matty B. Duran for sale on Amazon. com)