its just one of those days
10,000 years ago, someone carried a baby through the rain
and left their footprints in an ancient lakebed.
Whether they were the baby’s mother, sibling, stranger,
we can’t know.
Only that they walked one way together,
but the footprints on the return were alone.
What separated them, we cannot know.
Only that they were together for a moment.
Only that in the lakebed, they’re together forever.
30,000 years ago, an infant was buried beside its identical twin,
having only survived a few weeks longer than the stillborn sibling.
What happened to them, we cannot know.
Only that perhaps one could not stand life outside the womb without the other.
Only that they were apart for a moment,
Then together forever.
In 100 years
when the dam breaks and the lake where we learned to swim
becomes a river again, will it wash us away?
In 10,000 years
I don’t think anyone will find imprints of our flip-flops
Or the grooves where our little hands dug motes in pebble-sand
To protect mud-drip castles.
You asked to be ashes in the sea. And so we scattered you.
If I’d had my way, we would have walked together much farther.
And you’d have been tucked into the soil, waiting for me.
They would have found my footprints beside yours, both ways.
They would have found a lock of my hair clutched in your hand.
Your name, they could not know.
Only that,
for a moment,
you were someone’s sister.
