The Same but Different
You separate the dark and light clothes
I wash them all together
I don’t scrape the carrots
before I add them to soup
We both don’t like
talking on the phone
When I wrote about you
in my pink ponytail diary
I called you “the bigshot”
I was ten with pipedreams and baby fat
wanting a baby-sitting job
for 50-cents an hour
You had a girlfriend named Go Go
who wiggled when she walked
and smoked cigarettes
on the CYO drill team bus
where everyone sang
In the Still of the Night
in a harmonizing chorus
You sew and I hem
You read and I dance
I wanted to be a doctor
or a peddler when I grew up
and you wanted to be a nun
You wanted to decorate the bedroom we shared
with purple gingham curtains and matching rugs
but our mother said we couldn’t afford that
I hung the laundry and imagined a house fire
The clothes on the line were all I had left
We had a party line then and I liked to listen in
I had a turntable and you got married
But I was too tired to lift my hands and clap
for Tom Rush at the South Shore Music Circus
before there was a name for Chronic Fatigue
and before anyone knew what Lyme was
you had a bulls-eye rash
When our brother Danny
was dying in a Houston hospital
we sat by his bed like bookends
At night in his apartment we slept side-by-side
just like we did when we were kids
and our mother dressed us alike
You in red and me in blue
Some people thought we were twins
Danny was buried on top of our brother Jim
as if he was going to sleep on a school night
after washing dishes in the Old Mill Grille
He slept on the top bunk
in the room he shared with Jim
and couldn’t wake up in the morning
when our mother called his name
“We lost Jim” a month before Dan
It was you on the other end of the call
And when you were sick words weren’t enough
We cried over the phone together
Once we fought over a hairbrush
in a stubborn standoff of wills
We both claimed and clung to it
I don’t remember who gave up first
I lost the key to the diary
and had to break the lock
Our house was taken by eminent domain
and was purposefully burned to ash
_________Colleen Redman / Poets United/ dVerse Poet Pub
October 13th, 2019 8:19 am
Jeez, CR…
I can’t see a thing, standing in your Poetic shadow.
October 13th, 2019 8:28 am
Such a poignant and heartfelt poem, Colleen. You included such wonderful details about your sister and you….and your brothers. I had known one of your brothers had died but had not realized another had passed too.
And your sister? I can’t remember….has she also passed? From effects of lyme? (feel free not to answer) Really a saga of a poem – the people and their home. Sad ending…with the house in ashes.
You are such a strong writer!! Whew.
October 13th, 2019 9:08 am
fantastically written,,very, very real
October 13th, 2019 10:24 am
This is a heartfelt right. It’s amazing that we remember every detail of our loved ones and I love the way you pay tribute to them here.
October 13th, 2019 10:35 am
Thank you, Mary, Chelsea and Ron. My sister Kathy died in late 2015 of cancer. I don’t know if the Lyme played into it but it did cause her loss of hearing. Like CFS it wasn’t even known about when she had the classic bullseye rash in the late ’70s. I have big dreams and little dreams and big poems and little poems and this is a big poem. It’s part of the collection I spoke about at the Hahn Garden reading “Objects May Be Closer Than They Seem,” http://looseleafnotes.com/2019/07/objects-may-be-closer-than-they-appear/ which has a lot of conversational poems to my sister. Here’s a link to more about my sister’s death.
http://looseleafnotes.com/2015/11/gold/
My brothers Jim and Dan died a month apart in 2001. The whole thing played out like a Hollywood script and rocked our world. I wrote the book The Jim and Dan Stories that was used in a Radford University grief and loss class for counselors for years. Your question, Mary reminds me that I should post the beginning of the story which was a a story in itself and a setup for the book. Here is a link and poem about that.
http://looseleafnotes.com/2014/07/jim-and-dan-on-the-second-anniversary-of-their-deaths/
There were nine of us and now there are six!
October 13th, 2019 12:11 pm
Colleen, this is such a moving poem. I have been having trouble posting comment as usual. Your site doesnt accept my log in info, but am trying again. I cant begin to imagine losing three siblings in such a short period of time. Truly staggering. It is wonderful you keep them alive in your poetry and your memory. This was so moving to read.
October 13th, 2019 1:26 pm
The specifics you weave into this make the sense of sharing and absence vivid.
October 13th, 2019 1:40 pm
This is incredibly poignant, Colleen!
October 13th, 2019 8:55 pm
This really is so poignant and beautiful at the same time. Whether it is biographical or not doesn’t matter but should be an inspiration for other writers to write their histories down as well as your children or grandchildren might value it highly.
October 13th, 2019 9:39 pm
First, I am sorry for the deep loss you have given the reader glimpses of your family. I am sorry to hear about the Lyme Disease. People don’t realize the complications that come from this illness.
October 14th, 2019 8:24 am
A wonderful recreation of all those family relationships, and the closeness yet sadness.
October 14th, 2019 10:47 am
I went back to the link that you posted of the poem you wrote about your brothers. My goodness, your family has certainly known its share of grief. I cannot imagine losing brothers in such a close time frame and then later your sister.It seems you are the only sibling left? I understand why you said that THIS poem is a ‘big poem.’ Yes, it is. One which will live on and on & speaks so deeply!
October 14th, 2019 11:06 am
Thanks, Mary. There were nine of us, now six. Death and grief have certainly been a theme.
The Sum of Parts
I keep having to count
and recount
How many are we now?
The math equals orphans
like laundry on a line
with no clothespins to hold us
Now I am the oldest
but 3rd in the line
and separated by one
from the other five
Divided by death
times who we miss
with a common denominator
of unsolvable sadness
October 14th, 2019 8:14 pm
I am sad, but feel honored to have read this . There is a special meaning for me in all your family poems and they express that so beautifully in a way I cannot. Like all good poets.
October 15th, 2019 3:01 am
Big hugs, Colleen. My younger sister died when she was about two, so while I read about you and your sister, I wondered if my sister and I could’ve had as loving a relationship.
October 17th, 2019 4:17 pm
So very glad you posted tonight. Heartfelt narrative poem . I am so very sorry for the losses you’ve faced.
October 17th, 2019 4:46 pm
So very heartbreaking, losing the ones we love. I am so sorry for your losses.
October 17th, 2019 5:04 pm
I especially liked the description of your two brothers. Best wishes if this is a true account.
October 17th, 2019 5:54 pm
So touching. A lovely account of family ties.
October 17th, 2019 8:14 pm
This is poignant. Thank you for sharing.
October 17th, 2019 8:28 pm
Wow. Great poem detailing so many snippets of a life. Well written.
October 17th, 2019 9:50 pm
Your descriptions are magnificent. You have proven that being different doesn’t have to divide us. I am sorry for your losses.
October 18th, 2019 5:19 am
the historic details alone make wonderful reading and you interweave with the lightest touch, all the deaths and grief so that it has even more impact.
I am sorry for all the tremendous losses in you family
October 18th, 2019 2:41 pm
Loved the clarity in the narrative.
October 19th, 2019 3:23 pm
I really love how you weave all those little details into the narrative of your siblings… how we shape our lives in each other’s shadow and in the end come together in death.
October 19th, 2019 11:18 pm
We keep our families close always. Beautiful details, so much love.
October 20th, 2019 5:14 pm
All of the differences woven through this actually amount to a bond when considered over a lifetime.
October 20th, 2019 10:11 pm
What a wonderful poem. So many wonderful images. I loved the verse about your brothers being buried together as if they were asleep in their bunk beds. It made me smile even though my eyes were wet. And the way you foreshadowed the stark end of the poem in the fifth stanza. And the steady progression of associations that led to the climax. This is an amazing narrative of tragedy and recurrent bad luck made readable by poetic finesse. Thank you so much for showing us how its done.
October 21st, 2019 1:12 am
This is a very poignant poem. It’s very deep and describes the love for a sibling beautifully.