When My Sister and I Shared a Bed

My mother put me down drowsing toddler heavy, releasing me

to those pale early nights when my sister and I shared a bed

and the cedar tree played outside with woodsmoke, nosing the window glass.

I waited, sleeping, waiting under a diamond sea of stitches worn from pink,

knee waves rolling, her adult eight years bedtime imminent as I slept.

And when she timelessly appeared, crawling into my solitary slumber,

she made soft blankets of warm words, bringing cotton elbows

to our ritual, delicately rustling thin legs to stillness beside me. Knowledge

was gifted to her as an understanding, as a prodigy carries talent before mind,

as a midwife bears years of body experience on her hands -

so she would whisper that she was going to pat me to sleep.

I flattened my hot round cheek against a flannel pillow seam,

gave up my night-gowned back again to those four small fingertips

carefully stitched together with intent and winged tender,

rhythmically feathering my tiny shoulder blade

until we dreamt together

that all was one.