Lizzy Burnam 🐞

When I was young and I heard noises in the night, I was not afraid; 
I knew it was just my sister, sneaking out the window, 
scraping her thighs on the torn aluminum screen 
and passing through spider webs on her way out.
Shock-thud in the heel where the bone spur would later develop. 
How well-adjusted her eyes must be to the dark. 
Not like mine, hopelessly blind under anything but a clear day-lit sky. 

Every morning, first thing, I open the blinds for the plants. 
I start with the west window, where the tradescantia creep. 
Then the ones to the north, to let a little light in 
for the silver satin splash and the lanky Zanzibar gem. 
Whoever named the plants were poets. 
When a hummingbird purrs and taps its beak on the glass, 
I am not afraid. All that I love is alive today. 

“Eyes are the windows to the soul,” the neighbor said. 
Ruthie’s mom, I think. Her one disciplinary hand full of cigarette. 
My sister snickered, bloodshot, 
skunk smell sunk into her skin and every strand of eyebrow hair. 
I wrapped her secrets in a porcelain hug around my shoulders,
and I was not afraid. 

Today, the world outside the window is blue as a jewel. 
A text from my sister’s oldest son: his favorite poem so far 
is "Dust of Snow" by Robert Frost. 
The way a crow / shook down on me / the dust of snow / from a hemlock tree.
I hear the rattling, the key searching for the keyhole, 
a winking shadow in the porch light, 
and I am not afraid. Wide open, my heart, a door.