Thanksgiving

This is the first Thanksgiving since my sister died

and it leads to me to a list of upcoming firsts

The first Christmas, the first New Year and more

a feeling of loneliness a feeling of helplessness

welling behind my eyes and in my heart

the counted days accumulating until the hurt dissipates.

This morning I awoke with her voice in my dream

I lay there for a moment in that half-life

of sleep and waking of dream and reality

waiting for one or the other to dominate my being

while trying to reclaim the moment and place

to pull myself into the exact time of its occurrence.

And there I was, a child again on Thanksgiving day

lolling in the heavy afternoon of 1960

with my sister goading me to eat just one more bite

from the turkey shambles on the dining room table

whispering from behind the door, behind the chair

"The turkey's calling you, the turkey's calling you."

My sister spoke her own language that she created

to torment me, to tease me, to endear me

and I can barely recall the vocabulary now

the passing years have weakened my memories 

and wasted my past into a heap of bone and ash

which my tears serve to wash away even further.

Her stories entertained the lonely days and nights

of our exile to a new town a new state

where friendless and shy I restarted with hesitation

the interactions with which I was never comfortable

her weaving drew me back from the void, 

a gully into which my soul had fallen.

Who was that child, stuffed with Thanksgiving

where is that child, sedated and calm

driven into action with a whispered phrase;

why did I eat over and over just to maintain the joke

I must have been nearly sick to death 

but I labored on to please her.

How unlike the later years when I abandon my sister

not out of malice or anger but out of selfishness and pride

and I grew the separation upon miles and miles

and I grew the new, humorless me

who would never again stuff his face just to please

but who would ignore all past and present kindness. 

A soul fallen ever deeper and ever further away

so deep not even a smiling and meaningless phrase 

could pull me back could save the divided heart

from dividing ever wider and wider

creating a distance even excuses could not span

and leaving her alone yet ever hopeful.

I arise an aging man facing both in and out

with a wisp of words tugging at my hearing

just beyond the moment of dreams

and just before the moment of waking

where even Thanksgiving has lost all meaning

and where death always defeats life.