In My Sights, Sister
My eyes are polished smooth by sight, they clot like crystals in storm glass,
like my sister brewing beakers of toxin. If we had seen
what had been done, what the helicopter pilot did in our name,
what the special ops team did in our name, what they did
with their hands in our name. What if it were my sister,
what if it were her, what? If we had seen with our own smooth eyes.
Mark the diacritical, my lovely: we’re all wearing our knee-high boots,
every last one of us, we live in a booted nation. A nation girded and gunning.
This moment, this is precisely all, watching takes work, sight takes hours,
takes my eyeglasses, every last one of them, as if they were yours. You can see
there’s a sigh in our sight. What if it were my sister? What if it were,
what. What we saw ground into our eyes with the photos,
with the newspaper reports. What would I say, what can I say if,
what would I say if it were my sister, my own? With my own
beakers of toxin, my own boots, my own hands in my own name?
Copyright Credit: Rachel Galvin, "In My Sights, Sister." Copyright © 2016 by Rachel Galvin. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2016)