Dawn

Among the hills

I am the last to leave the cradle

to see the sunrise above

the earthen swell that defines my world.

My sister, who sleeps beside me,

climbs to the ridge

races to meet the morning halfway.

She is all light

leaving no footsteps

but her shadow

and a faint one only.

The sun is the tightest hug she will accept

with its stretching fingers brushing hers

as its spare hand lingers across the hills

(across the flats, the sea, and the hills again).

She stands and watches the light

bend across light and sees it only

sliding along the skin of one

who climbed the ridge, and the next, and the next.

When it has risen and become fully hers

like the day she cannot share

she returns to bed

curls among the covers and creates

a darkness she can pretend is night

so that the relentless sun reaching for her

through the curtains, the covers

is a new dawn still.

When I shake off the dreams

that keep me quiet and still in the light

she wakes next to me

a whole day ahead.