just another one about my sister

ten years is an awful' long time for
you to have been gone for, and
now i am older than you were
when you were still alive

but i am not yet clever
responsible
or good at art

the lane outside mother's, with
a football tucked all neat into the
crook of your arm, trying to
strangle me over a school dinner
because i told all of your friends
you played with barbies, getting
lost in a maze of corridors at
grandma's house, never getting to
sail downstream

but i will never be clever
responsible
or good at art
like you were

one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, ten years
and five or six days is an awful'
long time to not see your face
for, and to know that i never got
the chance to say good bye and
never will

foam beards in the bath, watching
Bambi in the children's ward,
stealing all your Tracy Beaker books,
trying to draw landscapes and
mansions and guinea pigs as well as
you

but i am not clever
responsible
or good at art

i am good at walking for miles and
miles without stopping, good at
making lasagne and doing headstands
and trying to make our parents proud

i remember buying you a white
t shirt with a photograph of an
island with a palm tree on; i
hope that you are there
now