Adrienne Rich — The Mirror in Which Two are Seen as One

1. She is the one you call sister. Her simplest act has glamor, as when she scales a fish the knife flashes in her long fingers no motion wasted or when rapidly talking of love she steel-wool burnishes the battered kettle Love-apples cramp you sideways with sudden emptiness the cereals glutting you, the grains ripe clusters picked by hand Love: the refrigerator with open door the ripe steaks bleeding their hearts out in plastic film the whipped butter, the apricots the sour leftovers a crate is waiting in the orchard for you to fill it your hands are raw with scraping the sharp bark, the thorns of this succulent tree Pick, pick, pick this harvest is a failure the juice runs down your cheekbones like sweat or tears 2. She is one you call sister you blaze like lightning about the room flicker around her like fire dazzle her unfelt needs thrusting the tenets of your life into her hands She moves through a world of India print her body dappled with softness, the paisley swells at her hip walking the street in her cotton shift buying fresh figs because you love them photographing the ghetto because you took her there Why are you crying dry up your tears we are sisters words fail you in the stare of her hunger you hand her another book scored by your pencil you hand her a record of two flutes in India reciting 3. Late summer night the insects fry in the yellowed lightglobe your skin burns gold in its light in this mirror, who are you? Dreams of the nunnery with its discipline, the nursery with its nurse, the hospital where all the powerful ones are masked the graveyard where you sit on the graves of women who died in childbirth and women who died at birth dreams of your sister's birth your mother dying in childbirth over and over, not knowing how to stop bearing you over and over Your mother dead and you unborn your two hands grasping your head drawing it down against the blade of life your nerves the nerves of a midwife learning her trade