Letter to My Sister by Georgia Gildea

Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer 
– Louise Glück 

I am ten years old again and you are just thirteen. Old enough to break a curfew,
to exist at night. You’ve gone out to the campfire on the beach, through
the woods behind the tent, in the hands of the tall and older boy
with the ring in his lower lip. I lie next to your unzipped
sleeping bag, knowing that when you come back
you’ll be full of otherness: fire-scented,
darker-freckled. That night
I dream of the campfire,
of being held up in
the woods, unable
to reach you:
tangled,
thicket-
limbed.

Years
later, I
am still
the watcher,
you are still
the dancer. You
turn thirty. I get
younger, held up in
the woods. Now I’m watching
you turn further – pushing outwards,
onwards. Your body is swelling, cradling,
growing out its secret. Moon-water, ripple, forest-light, little
leaf-heart, sea-at-night. I dream again of the campfire, of taking
my place in your arms. Inside, your new life dips and shimmers. I slip into its shadow.

………………..

Georgia Gildea is a graduate of the Warwick Writing Programme (2016) and a current student at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is studying for an MA in Creative Writing (Poetry).