Requiem For My Sister Poem by Eli Spivakovsky

1.
I can't say you were covered in flowers because that's not the Jewish way, we cover the grave in stones.
I remember when you showed me the shape of a bird under your eye, it looked like a flying swallow, but so tiny, it could be mistaken as a freckle.
You also showed me your short life-line. 'Look, see? ' you asked, showing me your palm, and it was indeed short....
How is your soul now o beautiful one?
So pretty, you'd inherited the helix for that.
I remember how you left home when we were kids, how you turned the street corner and I running after you, deploring you not to go.
You waited to see the look on my face then turned back. Back then just one person knew and that was all you needed.
Is your soul warm now?
You stole my boyfriend, you stole my friends, anything that was mine, you considered taking,
. I was your sister-enemy and when you finally did run away, you went to New York.
6 years I did not see you, you were a portrait on a milk carton.
The most beautiful milk carton in the world.
I knew your secret, you were not always so beloved in your first school and I was the only witness in your second..
But eventually you returned, and now who visits your grave?
Where is the parade of boys who loved your milk-white face?
O beauty, I miss you,
I miss our childhood before you became a firecracker - alas!
2.
You come to me in a daytime hallucination
and star-shaped confetti in your hair's fringe
(you could start a trend with that confetti)

My sister

I remember your school project
a book review and drawing
of cair paravel
from 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe'
I can recall still how well drawn it was
You used special derwint pencils
And I say to you
'Cair Paravel is just for crowning children'
And you correct me and say
'Aslan also lives there'
You open my jaded eyes

We talk for some time
And I can't forget
how we made our own language
An open palm meant 'sorry'
I used it a lot

The last time I saw you
I screamed at you across the street
You tried to take everything for me
You ran away from the Palace
a fire cracker princess
so resplendent, you could steal my boyfriend
and my close friends
and so you did

But now 20 years has passed
And I don't want to forget you
now that peace is forced on us

Sometimes when I swim
On my back
floating
I enter a new world
which you inhabit
and I ask do only you live there
and you say 'God also lives here'

And I am so glad you have been planted properly
that you have found your place in the universe
And I dream of you with your sad smile
and raise my hand for that broken last day

3.


I went to the graveyard and saw all the roses, rows and rows of roses....do you remember so and so?
yeah, he's part of some rose now,
and the insects pollinate the envelopes of his petals
and the breeze disperses the nectar across the graveyard to the other graves that aren't roses
and it whispers to the other roses, 'hello sugar-pie'.
In the middle of the necropolis an apple-tree graduates to flowers...
You haven't got a rose on your grave, but softest grass and you can tell you've been sleeping for a while now,
the grass is quite lush and thick now....
I have some of your books from when we lived in Hawaii and it's dedicated in the front cover by our mother from the whole family on your birthday and it's so sweet...
Anyway, I decided to try to visit everyone's grave with a fleeting glimpse because, well, first of all
what could they do about it?
And I'm sure it's good karma
and everyone's been dead long enough that they probably deserve it by now.
Because like Bukowski said, we should all be united by the fact that we're all going to die,
'the cemetery has an endless appetite' as my Rabbi said.
Everyone wants to know how someone died
as if they could avoid that one thing
they could steer away from death completely...
now I wouldn't mind being buried here if I can snuggle up to you dear sis, and we can count the stones
people leave on our graves,
I saw someone with a love-heart made of little stones poured on their grave and I wonder if it took 20 times to leave them there one at a time or if they placed the stones there all in one visit just bursting from love....
I really should do that for you and our mother, if I don't see you first.

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