Rebeccanrachel

From time to time someone will learn my name

at a conference or wedding, shake my hand,

and later, in passing, call me that other famous

Old Testament name, warmly embedded

in a sentence: Rebecca, how long have you taught art?

or, What is your connection to the bride, Rebecca?

I’ll smile, say, It’s Rachel, but it’s ok, and they’ll apologize

until I explain I love to be called my little sister’s name

and often was, as a girl, by work weary parents,

sounding off the litany of four to seven children’s names

depending on which home we were visiting

or living in, until the right one landed on the ears

of the wayward, beloved one. Yes, I say, it’s ok

to call me by her name. I love to hear the song

of it in the air, to remember the years when we were

Rachelnrebecca, to wear it for her, hear it in the flesh

we share as sisters, as if being composed

of mostly the same stuff were enough to live her,

give her an aging body, hard-won love,

the joy and grief of bearing, raising, sparing children

our inheritance, as if by surrogacy, by baptismal proxy,

rising every morning from the water of my bed.