The Mirror in Which Two Are Seen as One
1.
She is the one you call sister.
Her simplest act has glamour
as when she scales a fish the knife
flashes in her long fingers
no motion wasted or when
rapidly talking of love
she steel-wool burnishes
the battered kettle
Love apples cramp you sideways
with sudden emptiness
the cereals gutting you, the grains
ripe clusters picked by hand
Love: the refrigerator
with open door
the ripe steaks bleeding
their hearts out in plastic film
the whipped butter, the apricots
the sour leftovers
A crate is waiting in the orchard
For you to fill it
Your hands are raw with scraping
The sharp bark, the thorns
Of this succulent tree
Pick, pick, pick
this harvest is a failure
the juice runs down your cheekbones
like sweat or tears
2.
She is the one you call sister
you blaze like lightning about the room
flicker around her like fire
dazzle yourself in her wide eyes
listing her unfelt needs
thrusting the tenets of your life
into her hands
She moves through a world of India print
her body dappled
with softness, the paisley swells at her hip
walking the streets in her cotton shift
buying fresh figs because you love them
photographing the ghetto because you took her there
Why are you crying dry up your tears
we are sisters
words fail you in the stare of her hunger
you hand her another book
scored by your pencil
you hand her a record
of two flutes in India reciting
3.
Late summer nights the insects
fry in the yellowed lightglobe
your skin burns gold in its light
In this mirror, who are you? Dreams of the nunnery
with its discipline, the nursery
with its nurse, the hospital
where all the powerful ones are masked
the graveyard where you sit on the graves
of women who died in childbirth
and women who died at birth
Dream of your sister’s birth
your mother dying in childbirth over and over
not knowing how to stop
bearing you over and over
your mother dead and you unborn
your two hands grasping your head
drawing it down against the blade of life
your nerves the nerves of a midwife
learning her trade
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Hello Friends —
The poet Adrienne Rich had a younger sister, and also considered her feminist and civil rights activist colleagues sisters — famously refusing to accept the National Book Award in 1974 alone, instead bringing fellow nominees Audre Lorde and Alice Walker on stage with her to accept the award “on behalf of all women.” In 1997, she also famously turned down the White House’s National Medal of Arts, in protest of efforts to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, stating, “Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.” Rich passed away one month ago, on March 27, 2012, so it’s up to those that continue after her now to ensure art serves as a tool of justice and not just decoration.
Hear Alice Walker discuss Rich and the 1974 National Book Award, and hear Adrienne Rich read her 1997 National Medal of Arts refusal letter in the Democracy Now video embedded below:
And from Alison Bechdel:
Enjoy.
Ellen
P.S. Thank you to Bonnie for choosing this poem to send out in Rich’s honor.
Poet Adrienne Rich was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 25, 2008.