The Imaginary Circle of Love

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Perhaps
love is defined
by proximity,
confined by the perimeter
of an imaginary circle.

My sister calls me
a stranger. I see us crumbling,
brown pieces of burnt toast,
with that singed smell
lingering in the air

a puff cloud hovering
around us –
her, inside the imaginary circle,
me, outside it.

I remember
her innocent hands,
palms rosy and flat,
fingers short,
nails square shaped,
the hands of a child
always in my eyes.

I remember the other one
round, fiery,
supple hands, longer fingers,
nails oval, ladylike,
and her manner of curving
her palm,
“Be reasonable.”

I remember
our childhood,
a green room, a white bed
and the three of us in it,
the stone staircase of our house,
and the invented horrors
that lurked in its winding darkness.
Fear made three hands,
link over the sister
whose turn it was to sleep
in the middle.

We were no strangers then.

Now
I sit in the heat of a lonely summer,
shamelessly crying
over the disappearance of
familiarity.
I have taken a step too far,
fallen into the darkness
of the stone staircase,
out of the imaginary circle of love.