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Stray cats in the attic, the high bridge we jumped from into the river of frogs and water moccasin.
We no longer ask if she imagines our childhood home—
no longer probe about a life spent together.
Our mother nursed us seventeen months apart. We shared a room, camped in Mexico, launched a boat to Sardinia. Witnessed the births of each of our children.
I am not sure when we first noticed her memory migrating away.
Now I could say maybe that wasn’t betrayal but plaques and tangles.
When did she neglect to turn off the stove? Bake a cake without flour and eggs? Lose the way home, a block from her lane?
Sister, you no longer retain a history of us, remember less
and less, but the more you forget the further back I reminisce.
Sleeping together.
Talking too late.
Dancing into oblivion.
Swimming in the lake.
Sometimes you need a sister like a drink of water. Sometimes you feel you are dying of thirst.
Mary Morris is the author of three books of poetry: Late Self-Portraits (selected by Leila Chatti for the Wheelbarrow Book Prize), Dear October (Arizona-New Mexico Book Award), and Enter Water, Swimmer (runner-up for the X.J. Kennedy Prize). Morris received the Rita Dove Award and has been invited to read her poems at the Library of Congress which aired on NPR. Her poems are published in Poetry, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, and North American Review. See water400.org.
Published in Poetry, Poetry Daily, Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, Massachusetts Review, and numerous other literary journals, Mary Morris received the Rita Dove Award and has been invited to read at the Library of Congress. She recently won the 2019 Mountain West Prize from Western Humanities Review and has been nominated for Best Microfiction 2020. Her book, Enter Water, Swimmer, was the runner-up for the X. J. Kennedy Prize and published by Texas A&M University Consortium through Texas Review Press. A second book by the same press will be published in 2020. Morris writes book reviews, teaches poetry, and lives in Santa Fe New Mexico. See more at www.water400.org.