poems by rachel kellum
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My Sister’s Arm
As little girls
and teens, it was
our favorite sister trick
to trade skin,
so simple to sit
on the sofa,
open my right hand
palm-up on her lap,
her left hand open
palm-up on mine,
arms crossed
in the X of a kiss,
of a chromosome,
the tip of my left finger
perched on her wrist,
her right fingertip
perched on mine.
Eyes closed,
synchronized so as not
to break the spell,
we would slide
our touch slowly, slowly
toward the tender
inner elbow of the other
and back to the wrist
when it would happen:
the eerie sensation
my sister’s arm was mine,
her finger now my finger
stroking my own arm
back and forth,
until we could no longer
bear the awful squirm,
the skin-crawling
truth, that future lie:
we are one—
my arm buried with her
in the mud
when she died,
her arm here
begging for touch
as I type.
I Know How Old Women Love
Gramps’ teeth in a cup
on the sink of my youth: perfect toothed smile
now in my own love’s mouth
Elegy for LVJ
When Ultra-Violet died,
her house plants,
silent green friends
for decades—
fern, heartleaf,
giant jade—died too.
Her kitchen radio
played classic rock
in the dark
for weeks, looking
antique but new,
seeking her ear.
Old cigarette ash lay
in a faceted glass tray
like faded buffalo,
like fingers mourning
the letters of her
nearby keyboard.
in memory of Laurie Violet James