A Poem
Blood & Battery Packs
My mother brings her home in a blue and white blanket, it’s one day After Christmas or two–I think she’s a present my mother forgot to wrap. I know where each button is and when to push so she’ll sink her teeth deep draining blood and leave us both in tears. I dress her as a clown for our front-yard circus and take a polaroid of Her frowning underneath a painted smile (that I’ll never live down). In the mall parking lot, a man struggles to open his door with ice cream In hand and I’m crying from nothing, then we’re both choking laughing. She makes a dress for prom with light strips and a battery pack, dripping with grace, the coolest person I know. She’s in an accident, I am camping or someplace without service; With blood in her eyes, she asks for the scarf I gave her in the backseat. On her couch in Queens, I try to describe the indescribable like the still of a lake, that I am certain is magic, she insists she doesn’t see it. At my house for the long weekend, I think we’ll share my bed like we did When we were young, pulling the metal frames together at Nonna’s To stay up late talking. She’d rather spread out on the couch. She’s unwell and I feel it, without looking at my phone, Even though we were never connected exactly. There are whole worlds between us and of us, Odometers and ice cream, blood and battery packs. Merging onto the freeway, windows down, we see silhouettes, two girls in The back seat, we’re frantically waving until they wave back.
Originally Published: scissors & spackle (Emerge Literary Journal Editions), January 2023
Where it came from
This poem is about me and my sister, Natalie, one of the closest people in my life though we don’t live in the same state anymore. I wanted to explore how our relationship has changed overtime as we’ve grown and come together and apart during certain phases of our lives.
When I wrote this, we had two recent experiences that felt different from how we related as kids. One was discussing God/the universe/the something bigger going on in her apartment in Queens and it felt like we were just missing each other in our conversation. And then, visiting our Nonno and Nonna, I remembered how we used to push the beds in the guest room together into one giant bed. We hadn’t done that in years, but I thought it reflected the same feeling as that conversation. That we were in the same space, but not. Together and apart.
The rest are snippets of memories from various points in our lives. My actual reaction (according to my mom) when she brought her home from the hospital. The light-up prom dress she made in high school. A car accident she was in a few years ago. And a day which I will never live down when I started crying in the mall parking lot because I projected a whole backstory and feelings onto a man getting ice cream at the mall by himself. After I stopped crying (and a little before) we couldn’t stop laughing.
The final lines are both literal and a metaphor. Sometime in the past few years, I think Natalie and I were sitting in the back seat of our parent’s car when a car drove past. I think the small girls in the backseat waved to us first. It was a sweet moment for me and a remembering of our former selves.
This is beautiful and speaks so much of the depth of a sister relationship, even when you are not physically together. I loved the image at the end, my sister and I always used to play “the waving game” on long journeys!! xx
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