a reflection on a recent evening

in deeply colored curls

lie her age

unsuccessfully

curling smoke from cured tobacco has fogged her lungs for forty plus

and drawn a permanent pink curl about

her eyes crying age

lovely, heavy topaz and diamond wrap her neck

an insist

on adoration of her wealth

dainty hands, too, carry a burden of beautiful stones

glinting lavishly even in the softened light of three mindless globes above dinner

she sips the poor wine we serve without complaint

the sister in her, the earthly blood we share

living itself out in gracious acceptance of table fare common to her refined taste

a prong of conversation turns to our two brothers she and I complete

as all that’s left from growing up in family

in brevity that protects ourselves, we abandon another listing of being jailed and distant

I comment...we all make choices that limit the depths of life

it is an invite into the depths of God

she balks on these words

and the spit of fire I have always known in her erupts defiantly

a flash across the leftover olive and onions

she decries her independence

gained by her strength

her grasp of responsibility

squandered by those now ceased from loving

she takes a sip of wine and settles back to more casual stances

she does not grasp

what I wanted her heart to hear

from my love of her

from sight within heart

no pique in her interest, her intellect, her grasping hole

the subject changes behind those dulling aged eyes

her point exposed

finished

nothing else to say or ponder beyond the limits in which she rests

but can you rest, my sister, in your self-made

world as your only god